Hello. Yes, hi. I am here to impart a very important message to you, and that is this: Pumpkin Spice Latte M&Ms are a thing. They are real, and they are not just plain old Pumpkin Spice M&Ms — they are latte-flavored. You can buy them. Right now. And I don't know how they happened without me knowing they were happening… but they did. How did I not see this coming?!
Seriously, you guys. All the signs were there: A regular, coffee-less precursor. A slightly less common earlier fall release. The anxious waiting for the actual PSL to return. Heck, these suckers were even on the Internet last week — on a site I check frequently, no less — and somehow I still missed them until now.
There is only one possible explanation: I have lost my touch. My weird food radar, once so finely tuned, has gone out of whack, and I have I no idea when or even if it will return to normal. A moment of silence, please, for my dearly departed skill.
But hey, I suppose better late than never, so at least there's that. A reader of The Impulsive Buy known only as “Robbie” spotted the new Pumpkin Spice Latte M&Ms at Target last week, and since then, they've pretty much taken over the Internet. The takeover seems to be a well-organized maneuver; although a few outlets picked up the fact that PSL M&Ms exist earlier in the week, it's only in the past day or so that they've begun to pop up… well, everywhere, taking us all somewhat by surprise. Why now? I suspect that either these autumnal treats are commanded by an incredibly competent general (who, by the way, I must assume is the M&M mascot known as Ms. Brown, mostly because adorns the packaging clad in a chunky wool scarf and carrying her very own PSL — if that isn't the very image of a PSL warrior, I don't know what is), or it has something to do with the fact that The Impulsive Buy updated their initial post with an actual review.
For the curious, here's what they look like out of the bag:
And you know what? They sound pretty tasty. Last year's Pumpkin Spice M&Ms didn't go over terribly well; likened to “kind of a wimpy version of Cinnamon Red Hots,” they were described as “more of a sensation than a flavor” that didn't really pair well with milk chocolate. Apparently the trick was just to add a hint of coffee and a whole lot of milk to the flavor profile, though, because the PSL M&Ms are apparently fantastic. “Coming as a delightful surprise, they taste exactly like a pumpkin spice latte in solid, shelled form,” reads the review. That means that there's not a heck of a lot of coffee — just a taste of it — but the “smooth pumpkin flavor here is seamlessly blended with the chocolate and hits fast.” Would you eat that? Because I sure would.
Interestingly enough, coffee isn't a flavor that M&Ms have played around with that much — which I find of odd, given how well coffee and chocolate go together. Back in 2008, a Mocha flavor hit shelves as part of the slightly more upscale M&Ms Premiums line; it was later discontinued and replaced with regular ol' dark chocolate, though, and coffee has been conspicuously absent from the M&Ms lineup ever since. M&MS Premiums, too, seem to have gone the way of all things; they're no longer available on the M&Ms website, so do with that what you will.
In any event, a spokesperson for M&Ms has, in fact, confirmed that the Pumpkin Spice M&Ms will be dropping this week at Target — so if you want 'em, now would be the time to go out and get 'em. We've got to do something while we're waiting for the almighty Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte to arrive, right?
Images: M&Ms; theimpulsivebuy/Flickr
