What does late-stage pumpkin mania look like?

Yeah, yeah: I’m not suggesting that this country’s obsession with autumnal seasoning is going to be squashed out any time soon—I’ve made that mistake for about three consecutive years now. But I am saying that we are approaching an absurdity threshold, where even illogical products are being consecrated by this harvested incense.

And the breakfast aisle is no exception. On the surface, Frosted Flakes is a cereal dominated by tame flavors like chocolate and cinnamon—other cereals like this include Golden Grahams and Corn Pops—but it’s trying out this whole pumpkin spice thing with the timeliness of my grandpa doing the Harlem Shake. Plus on the back is a decked-out Halloween music festival called “Tony’s Pumpkin Up the Jams Fest.” Which is honestly a pretty unforgivable pun…

…that I wish I had thought of first.

Taking hipness out of the equation, I must still evaluate Pumpkin Spice Frosted Flakes with the unbiasedly refined palate of a cereal journalist. Or of Einstein’s dog, I guess.

Anyone wanna finish these Pumpkin Spice Frosted Flakes for me?

Because the only thing I should be eating right now is my words.

Right off the back of my taste buds, PS FFs hits me with the most authentic rendition of pumpkin spice I’ve ever tasted in a cereal. A very ginger and allspice-forward cereal, the warm nip of cinnamon and the earthen bite of nutmeg fall behind the occasionally peppery, mostly gingerly candied flavor blends well with the more mellow and grounded spices. It’s genuine enough to have me mentally crossing timelines into a world where (I know I made a similar joke last week but let me have this) moronic 8th graders ate spoonfuls of pure pumpkin spice as a YouTube challenge instead—and people drink…Parsley Spice Lattes.

And because Frosted Flakes, like Life, is what I like to call an alley oop cereal. That is, the base flake corniness hardly impacts the flavor—though its thick, sugary sheen goes a long way toward making the ginger’s potency more charming. While I still think the nearly nacho-colored coating tastes good and seasonally enchanting, it nevertheless leaves me yearning for a denser, grainier base cereal shape—one that could give it more of a pumpkin-spiced pie flavor, rather than the pumpkin-spiced oxygen it is now.

Not a camera scuff: many of the flakes did have dark granules peppered about.

Sadly milk has a tendency to dampen many of Pumpkin Spice Frosted Flakes’ more interesting flavor notes. After a thorough liquid whipped-creaming (sort of), my bowl of already-not-pies turned into a slightly more zesty Cinnamon Frosted Flakes—which, though not a bad thing, combines with the cereal’s rapid soggification properties to make it a much more novelly worthwhile dry cereal.

So while Pumpkin Spice Frosted Flakes is probably the best pumpkin spice cereal I’ve had, it’s not quite the best pumpkin anything cereal, falling behind the much (pie) crustier vibes of PS Cheerios and Mini-Wheats.

I guess ol’ muscle-strapped Tony has been eating too much protein, and not enough fiber.

The Bowl: Pumpkin Spice Frosted Flakes Cereal

The Breakdown: An intelligent blend of every major pumpkin spice but cloves, Tony’s take on the trend briefly forgets that the reason people love pumpkin spice is because of what it’s historically used on.

The Bottom Line: 8 Cumin Spice Lattes out of 10