It’s that time of year when warm days fade into cool. Colors turn orange, Brown, and red. And pumpkin spice everything can be found just about everywhere. It’s great if you like pumpkin spice! And may be tiring if you don’t.
There are more pumpkin-spice-flavored products than ever — it’s invading practically everything edible (and some not so edible)! To name just a few, there are M&Ms, cake mix, potato chips, breakfast cereal, Greek yogurt, and Oreo cookies! (The Chobani pumpkin spice Greek yogurt is surprisingly good.)
As WordPress Writing 101’s Day 16 Assignment is to “Search your stats for a post idea” this is a perfect time to revisit my Pumpkin Spice Coffee Creamer review from 2013. I’ve noticed those search terms popping up in my stats again lately.
That review is here:
Pumpkin spice coffee creamer review from 2013.
I love actual pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread and so does my daughter. We also like the spice in other things but it depends on what and on the spice blend itself. I can get sick of it. No thank you to pumpkin spice steak for example. Or maybe yes? Hmm, I might actually try that.
This year I’m revisiting two supermarket coffee creamers and adding two new ones.
- International Delight: Pumpkin Pie Spice
- Coffee-mate: Pumpkin Spice
- Target’s Market Pantry brand: Pumpkin Pie Coffee Creamer
- Coffee-mate’s Natural Bliss: Pumpkin Spice
The last two are new to the party. Good news — gone are the hydrogenated oils and fats of previous years’ coffee creamers! This is great if you watch the types of fat you ingest, and you should. Also gone is the corn-syrup sweetener. All four of these sweeten with actual sugar. (There are sugar-free versions of many of these too.)
Three of them have the same 35 calories per serving with 15 of those calories from fat. The Target MP version has only 30 calories per serving with only 10 calories from fat.
International Delight: Pumpkin Pie Spice
Pumpkin spice is usually a blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and ginger. My review from 2013 stated that International Delight’s offering was heavy on the ginger so that their Pumpkin Pie Spice coffee creamer tasted more like ginger bread. While I can still taste the ginger in their mix, this year’s seems somewhat less gingery and more balanced. I like this one overall. It isn’t as strongly spiced as Coffee-mate Pumpkin Spice. It’s fairly good when poured directly into coffee or tea and I don’t feel like I have to doctor it much if at all. I’m not too sick of it by the time I get to the bottom of my cup. The oil in it is palm oil which makes it nicely creamy but not too oily and filmy on my tongue. This is tied for first place as far as I’m concerned. Dave likes this one second best.
Coffee-mate Pumpkin Spice Coffee Creamer
This one HAD partially-hydrogenated oils in its 2013 offering. I’m happy to say that the 2015 version no-longer lists hydrogenated or partially-hydrogenated oils in the ingredients. It has what I consider to be the most classic pumpkin-pie flavor of all of them. When I taste it, that’s exactly what I taste — pumpkin pie spice. As it was in 2013, this is still the heaviest on the spice flavor! It is so strong that I can’t put much of it into my coffee or tea without making it too spicy. That’s easy to fix though — if you want really creamy coffee that isn’t as spicy just add some extra plain or vanilla creamer or even real milk or cream. It’s nice if you want to add flavor while keeping your beverage light on the sweet creaminess. A little dab will do ya! The strong spice is also good if you want to experiment with mixing flavors like pumpkin spice with caramel. It really holds up. So it has advantages and disadvantages. The texture of it is a typical coffee creamer effect. This is also tied for first place as far as I’m concerned. This is third in Dave’s opinion. It’s too spicy to him.
Target’s Market Pantry brand: Pumpkin Pie Coffee Creamer
I was happy to see this as an option this year, but I’m not that crazy about it. While lowest in calories and fat, it is the thickest creamer of all. The spice flavor isn’t bad. It’s slightly heavy on the ginger, but a pretty good blend. The problem is that it’s almost cloyingly sweet and my tongue feels a coated after a cup. It’s weird that it’s so thick yet lowest in fat, so there must be something in it to give it more body. This backfires. I’m ready to be done by the time I get to the bottom of my cup (or even sooner). If you like really sweet, thick creamers, lighter on the spice flavor then you might really like this one though. The oil in it is sunflower oil which is actually a good thing so I wish I liked it more. This one is tied for second or last for me. Dave, who doesn’t like incense or scented candles, likes this one the best!
Coffee-mate’s Natural Bliss: Pumpkin Spice
I was excited about this one because the ingredients are so simple and awesome: nonfat milk, heavy cream, sugar, and natural flavor. That’s it! The blend itself isn’t bad, but it comes off little hodgepodge and maybe a bit heavy on the ginger and nutmeg. Not so much nutmeg that it tastes like eggnog though. It has more of a fresh-ginger taste as opposed to the others which seem like more of a dried-ground-ginger taste. Maybe that’s what bothers me. I like fresh ginger but that’s not what’s normally found in pumpkin pies. This one has a strange aftertaste too. I like it okay but I definitely don’t love it. This one is tied for second or least favorite for me. It is last on Dave’s list.
This year’s Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte is supposed to contain actual pumpkin flavor! I haven’t tried it yet. (I’ll have to fix that soon.) In previous years it was just a creamy spiced drink topped with whipped cream and chock-full-o calories. You can purchase an entire bottle of supermarket coffee creamer for the same price as one sweet beverage from Starbucks. While the Starbucks version was very yummy in the past, I still like the convenient budget- friendly option of a flavored coffee creamer for home.
There you have it, supermarket coffee creamer offerings for 2015! These are found with the other refrigerated coffee creamers in many grocery stores. Some even have special holiday-creamer displays. They’re a fun, seasonal offering for coffee, tea, or even flavoring plain milk and grown-up beverages. Enjoy!
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aLightningbug 
Oct 09, 2015 @ 13:22:49
I don’t buy these products, but what was interesting to me is this: We were on the road between Ohio and North Carolina the last couple days. What I really like when on the road is to blend coffee with a flavoring, my fave being raspberry which I have only found at Duchess at intersection of SR83 and I-71. So I had to opt for other flavors. I only found pumpkin spice at one stop so tried it out. Not great…more ginNwould’ve like more ginger I think.
Oct 09, 2015 @ 13:25:32
So sorry…must’ve hit the wrong button!! It needed more ginger in my opinion. I’ve never given much thot to analyzing my flavor additives, but certainly will from now on…I enjoyed your blog!
Oct 09, 2015 @ 14:08:27
Thank you for visiting my blog! I like raspberry too, but enjoy pumpkin pie spice this time of year. Any idea what brand you had that you felt needed more ginger? I’m curious. Thank you again.
Oct 09, 2015 @ 14:29:55
No, I don’t. After reading your post, i now have more to think about when I buy coffee and flavoring. For sure I’ll pay more attention in the future!
Oct 24, 2017 @ 23:38:38
Target, and Baileys pumpkin creamer is my faves. Everything else has too much spice for me. RIght now, I have the “natural” coffee mate one, and when i drink it, spice is stuck to the back of my throat that i cough lol.
Nov 04, 2017 @ 08:28:44
Thank you for visiting my blog, Kay! I’ll have to try the Baileys creamer. It sounds good. I don’t mind the ones that have a lot of spice, though, because I can always dial that back with a little plain creamer, milk, cream, or by just using less (fewer calories then too). But if I don’t like the flavor at all then I’m probably not going to enjoy it at all either. Wishing you a wonderful autumn!