SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — You know it is fall when the pumpkin spice rolls out in what seems like every imaginable product.
You know it’s fall when turkeys are pardoned. Pumpkins are weighing in and jack-o’-lantern talk. Yes, fall is in the air. You can smell it.
There is massive amounts of pumpkin spice. Meet food curator Maggie Spicer — and no, she didn’t make up her last name.
“That is my last name. I like to think that we were spicers back in the day in the early spice trade,” Spicer said.
So, you could say Maggie Spicer knows her spices.
She said it’s no accident our senses are being bombarded with the flavor of the season. It set off our olfactories, like a drug to our noses.
From pumpkin pies and turkey dinners, jack-o’-lanterns and tasty pumpkin muffins, pumpkin spice is in everything on the grocer’s shelf — creamers, coffees, and even M&M’s.
“I mean it’s too much! Spicer said. “It’s over the top. You know — lattes, yogurt, Oreos, M&Ms. They get this sort of artificial sugary orangee taste and smell.”
Starbucks said this season’s pumpkin lattes include real pumpkins.
But just in case you’re experiencing an early on-set of pumpkin spice palate fatigue, there’s a new friend of fall — the toasty graham latte.
“It’s fun. It’s cozy. It’s seasonal,” Spicer said. “The next thing. Next we’ll see s’mores lattes.”