Review: We Tasted Everything New On Dunkin's 2025 Fall Menu

Autumn is the season when coffee shops really get to shine. The days are getting shorter and colder, so everyone's in need of a little morning pick-me-up — preferably a pumpkin-flavored one. The fall menu at any chain coffee shop is easily the most anxiously anticipated of all the ephemeral drinks and snacks, but there's something particularly special about Dunkin's autumnal offerings. No offense, Starbucks, but Dunkin doesn't try to paint itself as bougie and elevated. It knows what it is. Come autumn, it hits us with whatever it wants to — be it something brightly colored or covered in cheese and bacon — but it almost always works. Almost.

In years past, Dunkin's fall menus had what you'd expect — maple this and pumpkin that — but for autumn 2025, Dunkin is getting a little more creative with its never-before-seen items. This year, we're seeing nostalgia mixed with a heavy focus on Refreshers — a comparatively new mainstay at the chain — alongside all the traditional seasonal classics. I had the chance to try each brand-new treat and drink on the fall menu in order to decide which items are a worthwhile addition and which can't hold up to previous autumnal showstoppers (I mean, how can you top Dunkin's Dunklatte?). So let's find out which treats prove creativity pays off, and which will make us scared to ever stray from our beloved PSL again.

Everyone's favorite summer berry and a viral Sabrina Carpenter collab gave birth to Sabrina's Strawberry Daydream Refresher. The concept proved to be a hit, so Dunkin' tacked on a few more flavors to the Daydream Refresher line, which are similar to Dunkin's regular Refreshers, except they add oat milk and fluffy, light-as-air milk foam on top. I was skeptical about this new mango flavor, since tangy mango and creamy milk aren't always a good pairing. However, when done right, they can make a delicious combo that's decadent and refreshing at the same time. Dunkin's Mango Daydream Refresher managed to get this tricky combination right, and it might even top the OG Daydream Refresher.

The slightly thick consistency and fresh flavor of this drink match up beautifully to make it a mix between a treat-yourself indulgence and something cool and sweet to beat the heat. The mango tasted ripe and fresh, while the added milk — not too much milk, I might add — highlighted the fruit's natural creaminess. The milk also tamed some of the mango's tartness, which can be a little overwhelming when it's the sole flavor in a drink. The fluffy foam on top primed my taste buds for a rush of tropical flavor that lingered for quite a while, but I wasn't complaining.

This one seemed like it had too much going for it to fail: Milk and berry are an obvious combo that work in just about any sweet treat, from drinks to pastries to ice cream. But somehow, Dunkin' managed to find the most egregious berry puree possible for this Refresher, letting it crash and burn before it even got its brief moment in the sun.

The Mixed Berry Daydream Refresher had the same mildly thick consistency, rich creaminess that wasn't overbearing, and bright sweetness as the mango drink, but the berry flavor fell completely flat. I wasn't able to identify any actual berries in the drink. Instead, the flavor was more like what someone would guess berries taste like if they had only ever seen photos of them and never actually tried any. If that wasn't bad enough, the aftertaste instantly brought to mind Play-Doh. (And don't pretend you don't know what Play-Doh tastes like — you can admit it; this is a safe space.) On top of the chemical-like taste, it also had a medicinal quality, like the fruit-flavored cough medicine we were given as kids. I guess Dunkin' nailed the nostalgia theme in the fall menu with this drink, but probably not in the way it intended to.

Who doesn't love a nice, humble pumpkin treat? Dunkin's Iced Pumpkin Loaf is proof that keeping it simple really does pay off. This treat doesn't have anything funky going on, just vanilla and classic pumpkin pie spice in a pre-wrapped package for when you're in the mood to embrace fall by satisfying your sweet tooth on the go.

I appreciate that this loaf comes pre-wrapped. Sure, it doesn't look nearly as appealing as a whole pastry plopped into a bag, but less exposure to air means it stays fresher longer. The loaf's texture is in between dense and light — dense enough to pull a piece off and keep the entire thing intact, but light and airy enough that it almost melts in your mouth. The texture could stand up to light toasting and a thin smear of butter, but this loaf would also be delicious chilled, maybe even with a scoop of ice cream on top, if you're feeling like going all out.

Although the pumpkin pie spice is plenty bold, this treat is still versatile enough to go with almost any Dunkin' coffee, from the new Cereal N' Milk Iced Latte to a plain cup o' joe. The icing is, well, the icing on top, if you will. It's plenty sweet and has a slight cream cheese-like tang to give the loaf a little oomph and add a zesty backbone for the warm spices to shine against.

Every Dunkin' fall menu needs one unique latte to stand alongside the illustrious PSL, like the quirky cousin that you gravitate to at the family reunion when everyone else is starting to bore you. This year, that latte is the Cereal N' Milk Latte, and it's exactly what it sounds like. Cereal milk is kind of having a moment right now, since nostalgic food is in fashion. Cereal-infused milk in coffee isn't a Dunkin' invention, but the chain is certainly bringing this combo into the mainstream by adding it to the fall menu.

Remember when you were a kid, and you would mix every soda together at the fast food restaurant into a sort of Franken-drink? It was delicious, right? This latte is kind of like the grown-up, coffee version of that soda concoction. It isn't literally every flavor syrup at Dunkin' mixed into one drink, but that's exactly what it tastes like. It's a little nutty, a little fruity, and a little vanilla-y, much like the mosaic of flavors found in sugary cereals.

Does this drink scream, "Eating cereal and watching Saturday-morning cartoons in the '80s or '90s?" Not really. I had to kind of search for the cereal parallel, but I eventually found it, in a way that was more like, "Okay, I guess I see it." Nevertheless, the Cereal N' Milk Latte was complex and delicious, and still nostalgic in a roundabout sort of way.

There's a reason that hash browns are usually considered one of the foods to avoid at Dunkin'. There are few things worse than bad potatoes, and that's most likely what you're in for when you order up Dunkin's hash browns, unless you popped in during a brief moment of calm when the food can be made with a little more care. They usually come out either cold and mushy or charred beyond recognition, and the same goes for the new Chipotle Loaded Hash Browns.

These hash browns are a spicier take on Dunkin' regular loaded hash browns, a permanent menu item. The regular ones come with a goopy cheese sauce and bacon bits on top, while the Chipotle Loaded Hash Browns introduce chipotle aioli into the mix. It sounds good in theory, but the aioli thinned the cheese sauce out and gave it a mayonnaise-like flavor. There was way more aioli than chipotle in this sauce — spicy, smoky, peppery bites were few and far between. The bacon bits were better than I expected, but they weren't able to distract from the weirdly thin, eggy-tasting sauce that drenched these sad, soggy potatoes.

This donut feels like the perfect pastry to really round out Dunkin's donut lineup. It fits in with the classic donuts, while still standing out and making a name for itself. The Kreme Delight Donut is made with yeast dough, a thick layer of chocolate frosting covering the top and sides of the donut, vanilla-flavored buttercream inside, and a dollop of buttercream on top.

Imagine a Boston cream donut, but with buttercream frosting inside as opposed to gooey vanilla cream — that's the Kreme Delight Donut, and it's hard not to love. Just like Dunkin's other yeast donuts, the Kreme Delight is just the right amount of chewy and soft, with plenty of icing spread evenly across the top. While it's clearly not top-quality chocolate, the icing still has a slight bitter taste, like that of dark chocolate, followed by coffee notes in its aftertaste. There was more than enough vanilla-forward cream in and on top of this donut, but not too much to drown out the whiff of coffee flavor in the chocolate. This donut is absolutely crying out for a coffee pairing — I'd recommend something on the stronger and darker side that's less sweet, because this donut can carry most of the sweetness for the both of them.

To decide which of Dunkin's new fall menu items are best to avoid and which I'd recommend trying, I set aside any personal bias in flavor preference. I rated these items based solely on their perceived quality, freshness, and objective flavors (for example, whether or not they tasted like real, fresh fruit).

The items that were deemed best to avoid were either prepared poorly, low in quality, or had a blatantly artificial taste. All food items that I recommended buying were true to their designated flavors, decadent and complex, and interesting enough to be worthy additions to Dunkin's fall lineup. Some stood out not just for taste but for texture, presentation, and the way they paired with Dunkin's coffee drinks. The goal was to give a clear, practical guide for anyone navigating the fall menu — what's worth your time and what you can skip — so you can make the most of the season without bothering with the less-than-delicious offerings that Dunkin' is known to present alongside its much more desirable treats.