The temperature is dropping, the leaves are falling and stores are stocking up on pumpkin flavored foods for the fall season. Some popular fall foods are pumpkin pie and pumpkin spice lattes, but Trader Joe’s offers some uncommon options such as Pumpkin O’s, Petite Pumpkin Spice Cookies and Pumpkin Tortilla Chips.

The Pumpkin O’s offer a great alternative to basic Cheerios if you want to start your day off in the fall spirit. The Pumpkin O’s feature a visually appealing box, with fall elements like pumpkins and leaves. It also states that they are vegan and gluten-free.

The box opens, and there is no particularly strong smell of pumpkin spice. The cereal smells like normal Cheerios, but has a slightly different look and texture. They are bigger circles and much airier. I prefer this crunchy and light texture over the more dense texture of Cheerios. The Pumpkin O’s are gluten free, which may have contributed to this texture.

One signal that The Pumpkin O’s have some other flavor going on, is that they have small brown and tan specks on them. They are not covered in the specks, but I noticed them right away. After tasting the cereal, the specks seemed to give the cereal some of its pumpkin spice flavor. The look of this cereal was a win, but the taste was underwhelming. They definitely didn’t taste like Cheerios, but they also didn’t taste like pumpkin spice. They had a slight pumpkin spice flavor, but it was hard to detect. They were sweet, but not overly sweet that it made one sick, which is a plus.

At first, despite not being overly pumpkin spicy, these Pumpkin O’s didn’t seem too bad. About five seconds are after eating a few though, the aftertaste kicked in. Notes of artificial flavoring and chemicals bombarded my tastebuds. It was surprising because the actually cereal had such a weak flavor, but managed to create such a strong aftertaste.

Everything about this cereal is great besides the chemical aftertaste, and with 20g of whole grains, 110 calories and one gram of fat per serving they are much healthier than some other cereal options. The Pumpkin O’s from Trader Joe’s get three out of five pumpkins because of their nice, crunchy texture, but lackluster pumpkin spice taste and artificial aftertaste.

The next item that caught my attention at Trader Joe’s was the Pumpkin Tortilla Chips. I don’t like chips, but tortilla chips and salsa is one of my favorite combinations, so I was interested to see how these would match up.

The Pumpkin Tortilla Chips proved to also fail to reach peak pumpkin flavor, but excelled in texture and taste.

The bag that the chips are packaged in are not anything special; they are not ugly but not anything noteworthy. The bag shows what the tortilla chips look like so it’s obvious they aren’t bright orange, but rather a slightly more burnt red color than usual. According to the bag, the tortilla chips have pumpkin puree, pumpkin seeds, cinnamon and nutmeg in them. When I think of pumpkin flavored things, I think of bread, muffins, cakes and sweet items. When I think of tortilla chips, I definitely don’t think of sweetness, so I was thoroughly worried about how these would taste.

When I opened the bag I expected a strange and sweet smell, but the pumpkin tortilla chips smelled exactly like regular tortilla chips. The chips looked normal and had some little spices on them and salt. Biting into the chips, I forgot that these were supposed to be pumpkin flavored. They tasted exactly like normal tortilla chips with a slight hint of cinnamon. The cinnamon and the saltiness of the chips worked together perfectly to create a tortilla chip with a slight autumn twist. The Pumpkin Tortilla Chips had a great textured: they were crunchy and, unlike most tortilla chips, were not drying because they weren’t covered in salt. The tortilla chips were great on their own, and also worked well with salsa. The salsa flavor was much stronger than the slight cinnamon of the tortilla chips though, so it tasted exactly like eating a standard tortilla chip. They still maintained their nice crunch which paired well with the salsa.

The Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Tortilla Chips taste great, and slight cinnamon notes accompany the normal tortilla chip taste to create a tortilla chip perfect for fall. Despite this, the tortilla chips don’t exactly live up to their name. They had no taste of pumpkin or pumpkin seeds in them. It would have been risky to try and make a tortilla chip that tasted like pumpkin and tasted good, but that is what I expected when I bought the tortilla chips. These Pumpkin Tortilla Chips get four out of five pumpkins because although they have a good taste and texture, they aren’t pumpkiny enough to earn that fifth pumpkin.

The last item I tried was Trader Joe’s Petite Pumpkin Spice Cookies. These shortbread cookies covered in yogurt immediately reminded me of the pink and white frosted animal crackers. I loved the idea of a fall twist on the animal crackers, with pumpkin shapes instead of animals and orange colored coating instead of pink.

The packaging of the cookies features cute fall colors and a nice design that is visually appealing. There is a clear part of the box that shows what the cookies look like so you know what you are buying.

These cookies did not have any strong smell, similar to the other products I tried. They are the cutest product I tried, with small pumpkin shapes featuring white and orange sprinkles. The cookies were extremely cute, and the only thing that would have made them better would have been if there were more shapes like leaves and other fall things.

Trader Joe’s Petite Pumpkin Cookies were amazing from start to finish. They had the perfect amount of sweetness with no weird aftertaste. The yogurt coating perfectly complemented the crunchy shortbread cookie and sprinkles. The pumpkin spice yogurt coating added more spice and kick to the cookies, whereas the plain yogurt one was more plain and sweet. Although the cookies tasted amazing, they tasted more like ginger cookies than pumpkin spice cookies. This ginger taste was definitely a characteristic that made the cookies taste great, but I bought pumpkin spice cookies not ginger cookies and expected more pumpkin taste. Despite this, these cookies get five out five pumpkins because they are adorable and taste amazing.

Trader Joe’s offers a wide selection of pumpkin flavored items, from the items I tried to other products like ice cream and pasta sauce. All of the products I tried tasted good, some more than others, but one thing they all had in common was that they had an underwhelming flavor of pumpkin.

Fall is in full swing and pumpkin flavored foods are taking over the aisles in practically every store, and I recommend trying these pumpkin items, but be prepared for a weak pumpkin taste if any at all.