Today's giant taste test comparison is something I've been wanting to do for years. I wanted to do it, but I was having a hard time justifying buying so many boxes of Cheerios. Every time I walked down the cereal aisle I would see a dozen different Cheerios flavors and think that eventually I'd get around to doing that taste test.
My brother Patrick and his wife Megan decided that the time had finally come and started buying every Cheerios flavor they could find before we arrived for Thanksgiving!
Patrick, Megan, Theresa, and I kept a shared list to keep track of all the Cheerios flavors we knew existed, and checked off which flavors we had found. Pat and Megan did the bulk of the work, finding all but 2 boxes, since I didn't want to bring too much cereal back in my luggage. When we arrived in Colorado, they greeted us with a giant bag of everything they collected.
Der, I'm Honey Nut Cheerios, look at me. I've got to be different from every other box of Cheerios. Der.
The kids saw all the boxes of Cheerios and were excited to get to try them all. Actually we were all pretty excited to try them. Cheerios are simple, but what they do, they do well. I'm looking forward to tasting all these different flavors!
After getting my lead-off picture above, everyone got to work pouring the bowls of cereal out for us to taste.
Got a spoon? Let's dig in!
I love the heart-shaped cereal bowl and milk pitcher. Patrick got it just for this.
I see you there Patrick.
We went around the table giving our thoughts on each of the cereals.
Theresa - We are going to have so many Cheerios on the floor.
Theresa - I love just eating dry Cheerios as a snack.
What flavor is Cheerios?
Theresa - Oats?
Patrick - And vitamins? Cardboard?
Patrick and I remembered growing up and eating Cheerios, where we would get a bowl full and then add a couple spoonfuls of sugar. The milk at the end would be sweet and delicious. Megan remembered doing it too. The sugar would pile up at the bottom of the bowl and it tasted like melted ice cream.
But just by themselves, Cheerios are a bit plain. They are classic, but not exciting.
Megan - It's like wood. Soft wood.
Patrick - I used to chew on pencils. The pencils had more flavor.
The kids think they are great!
Theresa - I like the Honey Nut.
Ian - Honey Nut is good!
Megan - I carried a baggie of these around when I was pregnant. It helped with the cravings and the heartburn.
Patrick - Apple Cinnamon is my favorite!
Megan - Mmm. I remember having these as a child.
Ian - I don't like it. It tastes like apple jacks and I don't like apple jacks.
Theresa - I've had apple cinnamon oatmeal. This is the same, just as a Cheerio.
Thumbs up from Alli.
Ian - Multi Grain is good!
Theresa - It tastes healthy. It doesn't taste very sweet in milk.
Megan - I would eat it when I'm not feeling good, but I would not use my money to buy Multi Grain Cheerios.
Multi Grain Cheerios with Real Strawberries!
Joe - At least they used to be real strawberries. Now they're freeze dried.
You've got to make sure you get a strawberry in the bite, otherwise it doesn't have much of a strawberry flavor.
Theresa - I like the strawberries dry, but not so good with milk. They turn soggy and slimy.
Patrick - That is just sugar in a bowl!
Megan - No flavor. Just sweet.
Theresa - Oh wow! That smells like medicine!
Patrick - "So Berry Good", I don't think so. No thanks!
Megan - Eww, it smells.
It's flavored with blueberry powder, strawberry powder, cranberry powder, and raspberry powder.
Joe - These really remind me of that Dunkin Donuts Berry Flavored Munchkins we had in Tennessee.
Ian - I love it! It's delicious!
Alli - I don't like it.
Theresa - That reminds me of a berry vitamin. Yuck!
Ian - It doesn't remind me of it. It reminds me of pure deliciousness.
Megan - Like a red Flintstone vitamin.
These Fruity Cheerios are flavored with Pear puree. Are Froot Loops pear flavored?
Theresa - I like them a lot more than I thought I would like them after trying all the other berry flavors. I like the Fruity Cheerios! I'd buy them if they were on sale.
Ian - Fruity is fantastic!
Alli - Yeah! So great! I don't like them. I love them!
Theresa - They taste less sweet than Fruit Loops. They have just a little healthy flavor at the end.
Megan - I don't think they have the a sugar coating.
Sheila - Fruity Cheerios are just okay.
Avery - That smells good!
Team Cheerios is made of 3 different Cheerios flavors. Blueberry, Strawberry, and Frosted.
Megan - I don't think I'll like them. I don't like Blueberry or Frosted. And Strawberry is probably a part of Very Berry.
Ian - It's good.
Patrick - I'm not Team Cheerios.
Agreement from Theresa, Megan, and Sheila.
Sheila - I hope you saved the better ones for last.
Joe - I like them! It's better than Fruity Cheerios.
Theresa - Eww, no! That smells like blueberry scented cardboard!
Megan - Nope! No thank you! Eww! I've never eaten a blueberry that tasted like that.
Joe - I like it. It really really reminds me of the boxed blueberry muffin mix that had the can of real blueberries to mix in.
It has a little bit of an artificial taste to it, but actually looking at the ingredients it's made from blueberry puree. No artificial flavors here!
Ian - I love them!
Patrick - Chocolate smells like Cocoa Puffs.
Theresa - I don't care for Chocolate Cheerios.
Megan - These could be better. Sweeten them up a little.
Ian - I don't like it.
Megan - It smells like off-brand Reeses. That is not good.
Theresa - It has a "stale" smell, even though it doesn't expire for six more months.
Patrick - The Cheerios in this one are soft.
Theresa - Eww! It tastes like something is rotten. That's disgusting. It's not even edible. (throws her remaining Cheerios away)
Megan - And it does taste like those really off-brand peanut butter cups that don't taste good and the chocolate is waxy.
Sheila - I don't like it either.
Megan - How did they get that one so wrong? General Mills makes so many other cereals. Why didn't they just copy that?
Out of our entire taste test, and going around the entire table, these Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheerios were voted the worst flavor of the day.
Theresa - That smells like cinnamon pipe smoke.
Joe - The cinnamon gives it a harder shell on the outside.
Megan - Wow! That's intense!
Ian - Okay! That didn't taste good. I didn't like it. (throws his into the trash can)
Theresa - I thought cinnamon tasted pretty good.
Alli - Those are so good!
Theresa - That tastes like maple! It's like a crunchy pancake.
Joe - Is this Real Vermont Maple Syrup? Probably not.
Megan - I was worried it would be overpowering but it's not. It's delicious!
Alli - I love it! It's my third favorite!
Megan - Can I mix it with Pumpkin Spice? Make a Maple Pumpkin Spice?
Mickey and Sheila - We both like the maple.
Alli - IT'S SO GOOD! IT'S MY FAVORITE!
Ian - It's delicious!
Theresa - It it very pumpkin spicy. I think I like it best dry.
Patrick - It's got nutmeg and cloves. It's good dry.
Megan - This is the first one I've gone back for seconds on.
Avery - Yummy!
Sheila - I like Medley Crunch.
Patrick - I wish the flakes were frosted.
It's very crunchy!
Theresa - It looks very orange.
Ian - These are not good.
I think the boy just doesn't like spice.
Theresa - They have a more mild cinnamon flavor than the Cinnamon Cheerios.
Megan - I don't know if I like the flavor, but I like the added crunch.
Theresa - I would prefer the regular Cinnamon Cheerios to these.
Joe - These have a strong Almond Extract flavor.
Patrick - It tastes like the almond cookies from a Chinese restaurant.
Avery - I love them!
Mickey - That one might be my favorite.
Theresa - I would like that as a snack, dry.
I thought it also might be fun to see the back of all these cereal boxes too. About half of them have games on the back.
While others prefer to eat it with milk. I always have mine with milk.
Even with this many people, there's still a whole lot of different opinions for what flavor tastes the best. There's nine of us and Honey Nut Cheerios Medley Crunch is the only one that received two votes.
Pop Pop loved Blueberry Cheerios the most. Many disagreed, but I didn't. It would have been my second choice.
Patrick likes the Cinnamon Apple taste of Apple Cinnamon Cheerios.
Avery must have known what she liked before this whole thing started because she matches perfectly with her favorite, Honey Nut Cheerios.
Ian was head over heels for Very Berry Cheerios.
I liked the Blueberry Cheerios, but Team Cheerios with its Blueberry, Strawberry, and Frosted Cheerios was just a little bit above that.
Alli thought the Pumpkin Spice Cheerios with their tasty fall flavor were the best. They were Megan's second favorite.
And maple lover Megan said the Maple Cheerios were the best out of all of them.
Okay, so I know how I said that we tried 20 different Cheerios.
Big thank you to Megan and Patrick for helping me get these photos quickly and efficiently. Megan poured the cereal into the bowls, while Patrick emptied the bowls back into the bags, keeping a steady flow of cereal to me and ready for photographing.
Theresa said that this was a very pleasant taste test. It wasn't an overwhelming taste test like some of our others usually are. She's not going to be put off eating Cheerios for months like she was for the Reese's test.
After trying them all, everyone went back again to try their favorites again.
Theresa - The Cinnamon Cheerios was an unexpected delight! The Chocolate ones were an unexpected disaster.
Some people like their cereal dry. The flavor for many of these comes through a lot more when you don't dilute it with milk. Theresa discovered that she likes almost every cereal without milk better, the one exception is Fruity Cheerios.
That might have been a lie. Just a small one. But 19 Cheerios flavors just seemed unsatisfying and try as we might, we couldn't get that 20th box of Cheerios.
There's a few different "retired" Cheerios flavors though that have come back in different forms. Like in Team Cheerios! A look at the side of the box says that it's made of Strawberry Cheerios, Frosted Cheerios, and Blueberry Cheerios. Strawberry Cheerios was a Limited Edition back in 2018!
And so I poured out a pile of the Team Cheerios.
And then Ian and I got to work separating Blueberry, Frosted, and Strawberry.
The top row are what came out of the box of Team Cheerios. I have boxes of Blueberry Cheerios and Frosted Cheerios to compare them against, and they look identical to me. I'm convinced that these are real Strawberry Cheerios.
And so with that, we have our 20th flavor.
Strawberry Cheerios!
Trying them by themselves, you can definitely taste the strawberry flavor. I thought they were great! They need to make these again.
We've seen above that Cheerios sometimes mixes up different flavors to create something new. What kind of other flavors could we create with what we've got?
Megan - We should combine Cinnamon Cheerios and Frosted Cheerios and make a Cinnamon Roll Cheerios flavor.
Patrick - Megan has good ideas.
That's pretty delicious!
Or what about a Maple Cinnamon Roll?
With Chocolate Cheerios and Frosted Cheerios you could get Oreo Cheerios.
What other flavors can you come up with?
Good morning kids! What would you like for breakfast? I'm being facetious. You're having Cheerios!
Thank you Patrick and Megan for buying all these boxes of Cheerios! What a fun taste test!
The Mother of All Cheerios Taste Tests!!!...oh my goodness! (glad you explained the 20th flavor; I counted & recounted the number of boxes in the lead photo at the very start because I saw the title, and could never get to 20...hahaha...now I understand why!) Btw, that was a great group photo with all the Cheerios boxes. Took quite a team effort to efficiently take all those individual photos...good work everyone. Really like that Cheerios pitcher and bowl...just so cute and appropriate for the occasion. Amazing how everyone had all their different favorites (except that one shared favorite). Funny and interesting to read all the different comments and descriptions of how a particular flavor tasted. That was a great idea to create new flavors (wonder if General Mills is paying attention!)...looks like you really tasted 3 more flavors (Cinnamon Roll, Maple Cinnamon Roll, & Oreos)...and could have a field day creating more flavors! That was a big taste test thanks to Patrick & Megan!...simply amazing to see saw many different boxes of Cheerios. EOM
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