Pretty Colors!: So I’ll just come out and admit that despite not really being much of a tea drinker at all, I’ve been looking for this stuff for a long time and mainly it’s been due to … the box. The artwork on the box is just so fun and colorful – in fact, all of them are from Bigelow’s seasonal line – however try as I might, I just could not for the life of me ever find this stuff actually on the shelf at any of my local grocery or big box stores!

I finally gave up on buying local and ended up ordering the box you see above off of amazon.com, and paid twice the cost in shipping as the actual tea did, but whatever…

Scott’s Tea Experience: Although I liked the smell, honestly I didn’t really care for the taste … and again, don’t put any real weight into that decision because I’ll openly profess that I’ve yet to find a cup of tea that I actually liked – all of the stuff just tastes like vaguely flavored water to me. The fragrance, however, was a very pleasant autumnly smell, kind of making me think of the leaves that the little chipmunks on the box are playing around. Especially if I was sick, I could certainly see myself hunched over a cup of this in bed, taking in the scents wafting off of the hot tea’s surface and savoring its comforting warmth … just as long as nobody expects me to actually drink it!

This is a Horrible Review…: Which is why I’m going to ask you, people who actually drink tea, to fill in the non-artwork-related critiques of this tea in the comments below so that others can get an idea not just of how beautiful the box is, but how this stuff actually tastes, too!

I’ll tell you what, I’ll even do you one better than that – if you want to write up your comments, but have just as hard of a time finding this stuff in the store as I did, send me your address using my handy-dandy contact form, and I’ll mail you a couple of the tea bags out of my box to try for yourself! They’re all individually wrapped and the artwork on the wrapper is kinda boring compared to the box anyways, so I’m certainly not going to need them…

This offer is only good for the first 19 people or however many tea bags I’ve got left between now and when you comment, but if you’d be interested to try a sip and share a few thoughts via a comment afterwards, please drop me a line and let me know! I’d hate to find that this is actually perfectly delicious tea and I just can’t even give it the time of day here because teas in general taste like soapy dishwater to me…

Reviewed By: James

First Impression: “It smells like pumpkin.  But it doesn’t taste much like pumpkin.  There’s a hint of it.”

Second Impression: “After eating some of the pumpkin baked goods, there wasn’t even any noticeable amount of pumpkin in the coffee anymore.”

Last Call: The “pumpkin” was just a shot of flavor in some regular ol’ coffee.

Blown Away-ed-ness: I’ve been searching for a delicious pumpkin hot chocolate mix for many a year, and now that I’ve found it, my cold and lonely winter nights shall never be the same again…

The Experience: True to the words on the label, Stephen’s is quite possibly the richest and creamiest hot chocolate that I’ve ever enjoyed, and I haven’t even tried making it completely with milk yet like I normally make hot chocolate!  I will profess to hitting it with a dash of pumpkin milk, and although the flavor on its own certainly didn’t need it, the resulting blessed union was nothing short of spectacular.  Seriously, this stuff is like warm, chocolate pumpkin bliss in your mug, so if you’re fortunate enough to find a canister in the aisle of your local grocer, put it in your cart … immediately!!!

An Anecdote to Fade Out By: Although it doesn’t exactly get terribly cold down here in Florida, save for maybe in January and even then, we’re certainly not battling snow or ice or any of that other winter weather nonsense that our friends to the north have grown accustomed to, I can still picture myself curling up in my favorite easy chair with an oversized mug of this delectable pumpkin treat and a good book, perfectly content to spend the afternoon swashbuckling pirates or battling orcs in my imagination while I nurse my warm mug of liquid pumpkin comfort…

Hey, Doesn’t That Look Familiar?: Well, sort of … according to the Internet, sometime last year General Foods International was consolidated with Maxwell House for some brands by their parent company, Kraft.  So it’s actually probably the same exact stuff, but since I don’t know what the difference between coffee and latte are anyways, I thought why not review it again just for kicks?!

And???: Ummmm, actually, I’m not sure because I burnt my tongue trying to take the first sip…

But?!: Hey, look at that foam – the last one didn’t have that, now did it?!  Ok, well for all you know maybe it did and I just covered the entire thing in whipped cream trying to look cool like those snobby baristas from Starbucks!  (honestly, I don’t really even remember one way or the other…)

The Actual Review: Ok, so once I started to get the feeling back in my tongue, I did end up finishing the rest of my cup and not surprisingly, my reaction was pretty much just like before – it was sort of pumpkin-y, but certainly nothing to write home about.  I did even try using hot water instead of milk this time to get the full experience, which is probably why my tongue still hurts a little bit because apparently it’s also a lot easier to get water scaldingly hot than it is milk!

Admission of Guilt: So although I’m not really much of a coffee drinker at all, I was pleasantly surprised when I found these funky k-cups in pumpkin variety because my wife and her sister run tea and coffee through our machine at home all of the time, and I barely ever get to use it for anything!  Ok, well I guess we do technically have some hot chocolate ones, too, but I normally use milk instead of water in my hot chocolate anyways, and really, when it all comes down to it, I just wanted to complain about not getting to use the fancy slurp-slurp machine like the adults do…

Issue at Hand: That said, we have a bit of a conundrum with this particular review because although I have reviewed a couple of coffee products in the distant past, I’ll admit today that I wrote those having distinct opinions on each of the pumpkin-y drinks that I was testing, however in this case … I have none.  Seriously, I tried some fresh out of the coffee squeezin’ machine, I even tried pouring in a dash of that amazing pumpkin milk that I fell in love with yesterday, but all I could taste was icky, bitter coffee.  Not really the best review because nearly all coffee except for a ridiculously sweetened few tastes exactly the same to me!

A Call to Arms!: So rather than me continuing to rant here and claim that this stuff tastes horrible, instead I want to open up the floor and ask you coffee lovin’ freaks out there to chime in via the comments with your thoughts on this perky pumpkin offering from Green Mountain Coffee!  Did they do good, or did they spend more time designing the cool artwork on the box than they did pumping in the actual flavor???  Inquiring non-coffee-drinkers want to know, so help a fellow pumpkin enthusiast out and share your own experiences today!

Smile: Doesn’t Pooh just look really, really happy there on that mug?!  Well, just like that willy, nilly, silly old bear, I too, was mighty thrilled when I tasted the first sip of my hot chocolate a la pumpkin, all thanks to the wonders of International Delight!  Granted, it’s been so long since I tasted the last one that I couldn’t even begin to compare the two, but for what it’s worth, this one does have a nice flavor to it.  Which is probably a good thing because I accidentally bought two bottles of the stuff as a result of not realizing that I had already gotten one during a previous trip a week or two earlier.  Oops…
Dosage: While I didn’t exactly measure how much I put in, it actually seemed like I did add quite a bit to find the proper pumpkin/hot chocolate consistency.  Big cup, though…
Keurig Plug: I’ve probably only used this fancy coffee maker thing a couple of times, whereas my wife uses it for tea quite a bit, but for the record I was pleasantly surprised at the cup of hot chocolate that it was able to crank out.  Fast, easy, clean, and I didn’t even burn myself on the scalding water or anything – no wonder so many people are fanatical about these things!

The Menu:

• Pumpkin-Chai Cheesecake with Caramel-Rum Sauce
• Toasted Pumpkin (featuring Hiram Walker Pumpkin Spice Liqueur)

The Cheesecake: Despite having a few issues with the recipe itself (I needed more than double the amount of Teddy Grahams to make the crust, and some of the times throughout were off for me), the final product of these exhausting efforts was actually very, very good!  While I wouldn’t exactly par it up to something like a Sara Lee Cheesecake or anything, it did have a worthwhile pumpkin flair to it … which was probably for the best because if I had spent all of that time and it still ended up turning out horrible…?!  As a side note, the caramel sauce did add a nice sugary sweetness to the cheesecake that seemed to go well, although I did have several pieces without and I can vouch that it can certainly stand alone as well!
The Nightcap: I thought it would be neat to end this series with something involving pumpkin liqueur because you don’t really see it that often, but unfortunately I think I picked the wrong blend of coffee because it just ended up tasting kind of bitter and other than adding an eerie, orange glow to the liquid, the flavors didn’t really shine as well as I had been expecting.  That’s probably a result of me not actually being a coffee drinker – I basically just grabbed a spare Keurig Cup (my wife uses our machine mainly for tea) and ran with that.  I believe the one I used was Kona Blend, but I might’ve been better off with one of the hazelnut varieties instead.  Nonetheless, the liqueur certainly smelled (and tasted!) intriguing on its own, so expect a separate review trying out some shots and other alcoholic pumpkin beverages later on down the road!

Appropriate Tagline: “Not just for coffee anymore!”
Back Story: I’ve actually been passing this stuff on the shelves for the last two months, but always passed it by because except for a few rare exceptions, I really don’t drink coffee.  Nonetheless, I do enjoy a nice hot chocolate on the occasional chilly winter day here in Florida and have had my eye out unsuccessfully for some type of pumpkin hot chocolate mix all season.  It actually wasn’t until seeing some of the Christmas holiday varieties (candy cane, gingerbread, etc…) that I thought maybe it might be worth a try as a way to spruce up my hot chocolate after all…
Mission: Accomplished!: Seriously, I should’ve picked up a bottle of this stuff two months ago – wow!  A seemingly perfect blend of pumpkin and the associated spices, and I think it worked even better simply because I wasn’t having to taste around the coffee flavor that I’m not particularly fond of.  If this stuff didn’t have an expiration date on it, I’d pick up an extra bottle to hide away for a rainy day.
Final Recommendation: Hurry to your local grocer’s dairy section and try to pick up a bottle while you still can!  Granted, the gingerbread flavor sounds interesting, too, but then again, this website isn’t exactly called Love Me Some Gingerbread, now is it???

Mental Note: website idea for when I finally run out of pumpkin options…

Thoughts: “I’ll show those cocky punks at Starbucks! I’ll make my own pumpkin spice latte – how tough can it be?!”
Afterthoughts: “…maybe this is something better left to trained, over-charging professionals…”
Construction Note: Instead of simply using hot water, I followed the alternate instructions on the side of the can and used hot milk in its place. For what it’s worth, this is normally how I make hot chocolate, too.
Flavor: Sort of pumpkin-y, but it pains me to admit that the $4 Starbucks creation was probably better … which surprised me because I thought with the whipped cream and cinnamon I really brought something worthy to the table! It was ok, but nothing spectacular.
Side Note: Shortly after spotting this product, I also found a Limited Edition Pumpkin-Flavored Coffee Mate coffee mix-in, too, but seeing as I’m not a coffee drinker, I figured I’d be better off going with this one instead.
Verdict: You win this battle, Starbucks, but thankfully since I don’t really drink coffee all that much anyways, it doesn’t really matter!

Epilogue: While I really couldn’t care less about coffee, per se, I have been known to be a bit of a sucker for hot chocolate. That said, I disappointingly have yet to find any pumpkin-flavored hot chocolate mix to try, so if you happen to come across some, please do e-mail me with where you found it and I’ll see if I can hunt down a sample of my own here in sunny Florida!

Yes, we do occasionally drink hot chocolate here in Florida – it’s not blazingly hot all year long…

Foreward: I know I previously said that I’m not really much of a coffee drinker, but due to peer pressure and an overwhelming urge to spend $4 on a cup of coffee, I decided that there was simply no sense in leaving this stone, err, pumpkin unturned…
Flavor Value: surprisingly accurate – as if somebody had stashed a slice of pumpkin pie in the coffee maker and deliciousness ensued!
Coffee vs. Hot Chocolate: caffeine was definitely present, although not overbearing
Returnability: If I were a coffee drinker, or if said peer pressurers didn’t live on the other side of the country and thus requested my presence at such coffee-serving establishments on a more regular basis, then yes – I do say that I would likely fancy another cup.

Starbucks Jerky Barista Note: I must profess, however, that this visit to America’s premiere coffee destination was not all sugar and spice. When it came time to determine the size of my Pumpkin Spice Latte, I saw fit to make a passing joke about how the naming conventions for their sizes was confusing as all get out (a la “Why can’t you guys just use small, medium, large?” etc, etc…). It quickly became painfully clear that said barista didn’t find my joke in the least bit amusing because apparently they hear that kind of so-called witty banter at Starbucks all the time.

And to that I can only respond, “Well, good!” I know that the guy behind the counter surely doesn’t get a say in what sizes the company puts up there on the menu, but the least you can do is acknowledge that they’re utterly ridiculous! If I opened up a sandwich shop and said, “Nah – we’re not going to do small, medium, and large sandwiches. We need to be unique, so instead we’re going with golf cart, kangaroo, and 14-month-old baby. Which one is the biggest one? I dunno…” – that would make me a jerk and it would serve me right to have customers dish out a bit of mockery in exchange for the mass confusion every now and then!

Final Thoughts: tasty, pumpkin-rich coffee, no matter what size you end up ordering