As we all wait for the Great Pumpkin (he’ll show, trust me!), let’s gather round, snuggle up with our our Linus blankets, and I’ll tell you all about one of the only cereal options available for pumpkin junkies: Kellogg’s Pumpkin Spice Frosted Mini-Wheats!

Kellogg’s introduced these hay bale-shaped love letters to autumn a few months ago, but now they’re finally reaching the shelves of mainstream grocery stores everywhere. If you stopped reading that sentence halfway through to pull on your socks and shout “Honey, start the car!” I fully understand. While you shop, I’ll sit here and entertain your cat, who is now reading the screen in your absence.

Hi kitty! Meow Meow! Want a treat? No, no claws. Be good. Good kitty. Treat for you.

Okay, now that you’re back, let me tell you about why these things are so darn good. Purely from the standpoint of a box art enthusiast, Kellogg’s knocks it out of the park with the harvest theme on this one. Just looking at it, I feel like I can smell the pumpkin plants, feel the calm fall breeze, and hear Pa noodling on his banjo from the porch.

Pouring out these little edible wheat Brillo pads (not exactly an appetizing metaphor, but you can’t tell me you don’t see it too!), I’m stunned by just how orange they are. Each Mini-Wheat has an adorable pumpkin face mask of orange and white, and unlike most other face masks, this one will probably be delicious when I lick it off.

I tried munching these lil guys with and without milk, and let me tell you: it makes a huge difference! When chewed in their plain, unadulterated form, there’s a distinct contrast between spice and wheat. Immediately after popping one in my mouth, I’m struck by a spicy autumnal mixture that definitely incorporates all of the “Big 5” that we know collectively as “pumpkin spice.” Let me break down the flavor balance with this helpful “pumpkin pie chart” (heh, I’m actually pretty proud of that one).

As you can see, the earthier and more complex nutmeg and ginger dominate, with the spicier cinnamon, powerful cloves, and peppery allspice throwing in more subtle taste notes. My mind probably dreamt the cloves taste, though, as they don’t actually appear in the ingredients list. Call it pumpkin placebo, I guess.

Plus I feel like there’s a little bit of indescribable, mystery magic flavor in there that doesn’t really fit anywhere else. Maybe it’s just the sugar, or maybe I’m imagining it, but if I could buy a jar of this secret “fall essence,” you better believe I’d wear it on a chain around my neck anyway.

Bury me with it.

The only bad part is once you suck up all the pumpkin pixie dust, you’re left with the standard pile of crackling shredded wheat. It’s grainy, pretty bland, and has a tendency to dry your mouth out faster than that awesome spit-sucker they have at the dentist.

But in milk they’re a different story altogether. The thirsty biscuits suck up whatever white elixir you drizzle them with, and the cumulative experience ends up being a lot more like a pumpkin pie.

The now moist pumpkin frosting on the biscuits brings to mind the spiced and sweet center of a creamy pie. Meanwhile, the soggy biscuits have a woodsy wheat crumble not unlike a pie crust. The light vanilla flavor of the milk is the dollop of whipped cream, and the gingery end milk (which is filled with the crumbs and pieces of biscuits that got crushed) is like scooping up that sweet, buttery last bite of pie that kinda fell apart on your plate.

And the Emmy Award for “Best Performance in a Cereal to Pie Comparison” goes to…that paragraph!

So at the end of the bowl, Pumpkin Spice Mini-Wheats have something for every kind of pumpkin afficianado. Officianado? Oh fishing tornado? Dang, that word is hard to spell (yes, I know it’s aficionado. Thanks, spellcheck).

If you’re looking for a classic, straight pumpkin spice experience: eat them dry, even though the aftertaste is a little too bland for my liking.

If you want a more harvest-y, vegetable-y pumpkin pie experience, pile on the milk (though it’s not nearly as vegetable-y as Sweet Potato Sunshine or Pumpkin Puffins).

I’m not sure how to close this review, so maybe it’s finally time to have a serious ethical discussion about whether the biscuits we eat in Frosted Mini-Wheats are sentient like the ones in the commercials.

Can I really live with “Mini-Wheat massacre” on my conscience?

The Bowl: Pumpkin Spice Frosted Mini-Wheats

The Breakdown: Rich with spice when dry, but it dissipates a little too fast. Nonetheless, adding milk gives you a bowl of rectangular pumpkin pie pieces, so I’ll be “Wheat-ing myself” to bowl after bowl after bowl.

The Bottom Line: 9 sick banjo riffs out of 10