Beyond Pumpkin Spice: How Fall Flavor Is Changing

As the days get shorter and the air turns crisp, our cravings shift. Iced drinks become hot ones. Salads make room for soups. Fresh fruit gives way to roasted pumpkin, spice, and anything that feels warm and grounding.

Part of it is biology — less sunlight, lower serotonin, and a natural pull toward cozy, comforting foods. But comfort is emotional too. It’s memory, ritual, and the taste of home.

Pumpkin Spice: America’s Favorite Fall Ritual 

No flavor captures that feeling more than pumpkin spice.

This year marks the 23rd season of Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte — the drink that turned nostalgia into a national obsession. When it launched in 2003, “pumpkin” wasn’t even a mainstream flavor category, and the latte didn’t contain any real pumpkin at all. (Since 2015, it’s included ~2% pumpkin purée from kabocha)

In its first decade, Starbucks sold over 200 million PSLs, cementing it as the flavor of fall for an entire generation. Soon it showed up everywhere: coffee, cereal, candles, even dog treats.

But this year, the glow feels a little dimmer.

Pumpkin Spice Fatigue

A new 2025 study from Montclair State University found that online chatter about pumpkin spice is down nearly 15 percent this year — its lowest since the pandemic. Fewer posts, fewer people talking, less excitement overall.

The researchers point to simple causes: rising costs of imported spices, fatigue from oversaturation, and a generational craving for something new.

Beyond Pumpkin: The New Fall Flavors 

After twenty years of pumpkin, people are itching for something new. 

A recent 2025 DoorDash report, analyzed millions of fall orders and found that while pumpkin spice still reigns supreme out West — especially in California, Oregon, and Washington — its dominance is beginning to decline elsewhere.

Source: DoorDash, “Falling for Fall Flavors: The Cozy and Craveable Trends of the Season” (Aug 7 2025).

Across 18 states, apple now ranks as the top fall flavor, especially throughout the South and Mid-Atlantic. 

Caramel has taken over much of the Midwest, maple leads in Michigan, and pecan — 2025’s fastest-growing and breakout fall flavor, up 28% year over year — has become Texas’s standout favorite.

The takeaway: America’s fall palate is broadening.

Image: Move over pumpkin – pecan just entered her main-character era.

Fall Comfort in Translation

What people reach for in cold weather also depends on where they are.

In Japan, it might be the gentle sweetness of roasted chestnuts or the smoky scent of baked sweet potatoes sold from little carts on chilly nights. 

Starbucks Japan embraced that spirit in its Fall 2025 menu with a new Roasted Sweet Potato Latte, blending the earthy aroma of hojicha (roasted tea) with the cozy sweetness of yakiimo (sweet potatoes).

Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/DOHvKtmj2JK/ 

But not all comfort leans sweet.

In China, as the air turns crisp, the season arrives not with syrup but with spice. 

A pot of málà hotpot bubbles at the center of the table — red, fragrant, alive with Sichuan pepper. Steam fills the room as friends gather, dipping meat and mushrooms into the tingly broth.

Image: In China, fall comfort simmers — a pot of má là hotpot shared among friends, fragrant with Sichuan pepper and warmth.

Western comfort soothes; Chinese comfort stirs. One calms, the other wakes you up — both bringing balance when the cold sets in.

That sensation — called má (麻) — offers a comfort all its own. Unlike chili heat, which burns, má creates a gentle vibration, a soft hum that dances on your lips. It doesn’t overwhelm; it awakens. Scientists say it makes your mouth buzz at 50 hertz, the same frequency as an electric current.

In Sichuan culture, that feeling is joy — the spark that keeps conversation, laughter, and appetite alive. Comfort here isn’t stillness; it’s movement and connection, a warmth you share.

Why Tingling Can Also Feel Like Comfort — and How We Bring It to Life at 50Hertz Tingly Foods

At 50Hertz, we know fall comfort isn’t only sweet or only savory — it can be both familiar and surprising, cozy and alive. So we built on that.

Our Tingly Brittle, handcrafted in San Francisco by Christine Doerr of NeoCocoa, brings together dark milk chocolate, buttery toffee, and brown-sugar warmth, then adds our green Sichuan pepper for a bright, citrusy má buzz. Just restocked for the cooler months, it’s fall comfort reimagined — sweet, warm, and lightly electric.

That spirit also inspired our Tingly Blend Salt, a new collaboration with San Juan Island Sea Salt that just launched right in time for the fall. 

Made with our red and green Sichuan peppers and San Juan’s solar-evaporated sea salt, it layers garlic, ginger, orange peel, shiitake, and a touch of chili — flavors that echo autumn’s depth and coziness. Earthy, citrusy, and gently electric, it brings fall dishes alive, from roasted squash and soups to popcorn and cocktail rims.

And to see it in action, check out Chef Doug Heilman’s Tingly Sheet Pan Chicken Thighs with Fall Vegetables, a cozy one-pan dinner that captures the best of the season: roasted squash, sweet potatoes, and parsnips brought to life with our Tingly Blend. It’s proof that comfort food can be warm and familiar — yet still surprise you.

From Tingly Brittle to Tingly Blend Salt, each captures a different side of fall comfort — sometimes sweet, sometimes savory, always tingling with life.

Because comfort isn’t just something you taste. It’s something you feel — that spark of warmth, laughter, and connection that lights up the colder months.

And who knows? Maybe one day, tingly will join pumpkin spice and pecan as the next great fall sensation.