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Pumpkin is back on the menu

Although we live in Florida, your forecast for this fall is cloudy with a chance of pumpkin. Yes, you heard right. Pumpkin season has finally returned. Starbucks’ famous pumpkin spice latte, which has 85,000 followers on Twitter, Dunkin’ Donuts’ pumpkin-flavored coffee and many more options are now available for you to indulge in.

Along with the announcement of PSL’s comeback, Starbucks has released a new way to find your favorite food and drink combinations: a quiz.

Based on your answer to the one-question quiz, two combinations of food and drink will be recommended, including a detailed description of each item and why it is the correct choice for you.

“What’s your flavor?” is the question, and cozy is the first option, which, if selected, will suggest a pumpkin scone or Washington apple pound cake with either a pumpkin spice latte or a salted caramel mocha. If your flavor is savory, maybe a double-smoked bacon breakfast sandwich with a Sumatra is your taste, or bacon-wrapped dates with Malbec will get you going. A chocolate chip cookie or chocolate croissant will help calm your sweet tooth, and why not add Moscato or Pike Place Roast coffee to sip on the side? Other flavors include spicy with a recommendation including a zesty chicken and black bean bowl and chai tea latte, bright with a cheese and fruit platter and rich, which suggests a cheese Danish and Teavana jade citrus mint tea.

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“Fall is my favorite season, so I look forward to those flavors every year,” said Mina Javidi, a sophomore majoring in communication.

Dunkin’ Donuts has also jumped on the pumpkin bandwagon, with the new slogan, “Pumpkin bakery and beverage favorites are here — get them while they last!”

Pumpkin donuts, munchkins, cheesecake, crumb cake, muffins and coffee cake are now back on the menu. Fall season drinks include pumpkin swirl hot coffee, pumpkin latte and salted caramel hot chocolate.

“I’m not the biggest fan of pumpkin season flavors because they get old after a while,” freshman Jessica Harper said.

Another restaurant that has recently joined the pumpkin craze is Einstein Bros. Bagels with its pumpkin lattes, muffins and bagels with pumpkin shmear.

According to a CNN article, Kellogg’s has now started frosting its popular Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal with pumpkin spice flavor. Also, new this year is M&Ms pumpkin spice latte candies, a follow-up on the earlier plain pumpkin spice versions.

Pumpkin is definitely a hit-or-miss, and there is no doubt there are people out there who are against the trend; however, there is one very exciting thing to look forward to now that such flavors have returned: The countdown to the winter holidays has officially started.

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