Mikela Picard

Lions Roar

Finding the Best Fall Drink

What's the best fall drink you may ask? Well, my friends Olivia, Tara, and I decided to go
to our local coffee shop and find out! We decided to do this as a fun experiment to find the best
fall drinks and fall-flavored food for the season. We picked four of the most popular coffee shops
in our town: Dunkin’ Donuts, Starbucks, Honey Dew, and Coffee Connection. After trying each
drink we would give our honest opinion and rate them on a scale of 1 to 10, and at the end, we
would pick our favorites from each place. This would be the true test to find which local coffee
business has the best drinks for the fall season. This was also a planned video for my personal
Youtube Channel (Mikela Picard) where you can find the video titled “Trying To Find The BEST
Fall Drink!!!” and watch our reactions and ratings there.
We started at Starbucks. Starbucks is well known for its wide range of flavored hot and
cold coffees, lattes, frappuccinos, and much more, especially during the fall and winter seasons.
We decided to try the infamous “PSL” also known as the Pumpkin Spice Latte, a Starbucks
trademark. I decided to order the original hot PSL, while Olivia got the iced version. We had
high expectations for these drinks since the Starbucks PSL is an iconic staple of the fall season,
and we had never tried one before. However, all three of us were not satisfied with our first try.
Though after we kept drinking the PSL we claimed it was “getting better” [Mikela], we still were
not pleased with the overall taste. In the end, we rated the initial taste a 0/10, but gave it a 5/10 as
we continued to drink it. We also decided that the hot version was better than the iced version
since it had a more “subtle pumpkin and cinnamon taste” rather than the “punch in the
face”[Olivia] that the iced PSL gave us. Overall we felt that the PSL was “overhyped”[Tara] and
even though I myself do not drink coffee or care for it, Olivia and Tara, frequent coffee drinkers,
felt the same. Though unsatisfied without the first drink of the day, we drove to our next
destination for our next drink: Dunkin Donuts.
Though not as well known, Dunkin’ does have a pumpkin spice latte, called the
Cinnamon Sugar Pumpkin Signature Latte. Along with this we also ordered a fan-favorite, the
Iced Apple Cider, now discontinued in 2020, and a pumpkin donut. After trying the latte, we
were again not satisfied. I claimed that it had a “bad aftertaste” and both Olivia and Tara said it
was “just not good.” We collectively gave it a 0.5/10 and agreed it was worse than the Starbucks,
then moved onto the next drink. Although we've had it many times before, Dunkin’s iced apple
cider was the best drink we tried so far. Tara gave it a 7/10, Olivia gave it an 8/10, and I gave it
the highest score of 8.5/10. The apple cider had just the right amount of spice in it and was
refreshing as always. Lastly, we tried the pumpkin donut, another favorite of ours. Olivia and I
both gave it a 10/10 and Tara gave it a solid 9.5/10, saying it was good but tasted a little bit
“earthy.” Though unsatisfied with the coffee so far, we had two more stops on our experimental
trip.
 Our next stop was Coffee Connection, a locally owned business with only a few
locations in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. All three of us have rarely been to Coffee
Connection but were thrilled with the results. Though they didn't have a Pumpkin Spice Latte,
they did have pumpkin and apple flavoring. We decided to get a pumpkin chai and candy apple
iced coffee. We also decided to get some food including an apple turnover and a pumpkin
muffin. We tried the food first. The apple turnover was pretty basic and although it didn't have
the strongest apple taste, it reminded us of an apple pie. The pumpkin muffin wasn't anything
special either because it had only a subtle pumpkin flavor, but still tasted good. We forgot to rate
both of these out of 10 but probably would have given them a solid 3 or 4 out of ten. The next
two drinks were our favorites. Since I don't like coffee as much as my friends, I preferred the
pumpkin chai over the candy apple iced coffee, but we all agreed these were the best drinks so
far. The pumpkin chai was well spiced and since chai is tea, it did not have that bitter coffee taste
we were getting from both the Starbucks and Dunkin coffee. The candy apple iced coffee was
also very good. The flavor took over the bitter coffee taste which is why I believe I enjoyed it
more. We all agreed to give the candy apple iced coffee an 8/10, saying it was the best coffee out
of all the ones we tasted. Even though the pumpkin chai is not coffee, it was our favorite out of
the drinks and we gave it almost perfect scores. Very satisfied with Coffee Connection, we drove
to our last stop: Honey Dew.
At Honey Dew, we only ordered one drink, and since they did not have a basic Pumpkin
Spice Latte, we asked for a fall recommendation. We couldn’t remember the name of the drink
specifically but we thought it was a White Mocha Pumpkin Latte, or something similar. After the
first taste, we were all confused if we actually liked it or not. We all agreed that it tasted more
like a frappuccino rather than an iced coffee since the syrup was very thick. After taking small
sips for a while we decided that it was not our favorite, giving it a 5/10. Additionally, Olivia
claimed that it deserved a 6/10 when the “straw is at the bottom” since it was more flavorful that
way. Though not our favorite, it wasn’t as bad as Dunkin’s coffee. We then decided to end our
experiment and go through our final ratings of each drink and each coffee shop.
Overall we felt that Coffee Connection had the best drinks and Dunkin’ Donuts had the
best food. We would definitely recommend trying the pumpkin chai from Coffee Connection and
the donuts from Dunkin since these were our favorites. Though we determined that the Pumpkin
Spice Latte does not deserve the “hype” that it should for the fall season, we understand that
everyone has their own taste in coffee and we recommend trying it so you can decide if it is
worth the hype. Overall, we had a very fun time and enjoyed doing this experiment and felt like
we finally cracked the code on what local coffee places have the best fall-flavored drinks and
food for the season.
Here are the final standings(our opinion):
Coffee rated (1=best):
#1- Coffee Connection
#2- Starbucks
#3- Honey Dew
 #4- Dunkin’ Donuts
Food rated:
#1- Pumpkin donut-Dunkin
#2- Pumpkin muffin-Coffee Connection
#3- Apple turnover - Coffee Connection

Photo: Thumbnail of Mikela Picard Youtube Video

Other photos:

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