EPCOT Food & Wine Festival 2025: Behind the Seeds, Test Track, and Tiffany
By: Sarah Stone
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My husband and I are huge fans of the EPCOT International Food and Wine Festival, making sure to go every year. The festival highlights delicious bites inspired by the many destinations celebrated at EPCOT, including France, Belgium, India, China, and many more. Part of the fun is Emile’s Fromage Montage – a sampling of cheese dishes from a variety of marketplaces – for each one you pick up, you get a stamp in your Food and Wine Festival Passport. Once you collect five stamps, you can take your passport to the Shimmering Sips marketplace to claim a prize. Sometimes we’re successful, and sometimes not – scroll for highlights of this year’s trip!
Food and Drink Highlights
We opted not to drink around the world (that is, stopping for an alcoholic drink at each of Epcot’s country pavilions) this time, and focused more on trying foods we’ve missed out on during previous festivals – my favorites were the pickle milkshake, pumpkin-mascarpone ravioli, and the pistachio macaron.
Pistachio macaron!
My favorite, favorite, favorite! The pickle milkshake! It does NOT taste like brine – it’s more like vanilla with a hint of dill and mint.
Korean BBQ wings with gochujang barbecue sauce and toasted sesame, plus a Boulevard Brewing Co. Space Camper Juice Nova Superstellar IPA.
Chicken dumpling with sweet and spicy sauce, plus an orange blossom beer.
A trio of drinks, including a pear brandy and two Mozart liqueurs – one is pumpkin spice and the other is chocolate.
Basque cheesecake with orange sauce.
Summer in Spain, including lemonade with yellow chartreuse liqueur and green chartreuse liqueur.
Cheese sticks!
Pumpkin-mascarpone ravioli with brown butter vinaigrette, pecorino cheese, pomegranate seeds, and hazelnut praline.
Brioche aux epices avec une garniture mornay de trois fromages (spiced brioche with three-cheese mornay filling) – also a chilled French cosmo with vodka, Grand Marnier liqueur, and cranberry juice.
Belgian waffle with berry compote and whipped cream – also a chilled Belgian coffee!
Potato and pea samosas with plant-based coriander-lime cream.
French onion soup-style dumplings with pork and beef, caramelized onion, sherry-beef broth, onion and gruyere soubise, parmesan cracker, and micro chives.
Behind the Seeds Greenhouse Tour
As an anniversary surprise, my husband booked a Behind the Seeds Greenhouse Tour, which is a one-hour walking tour of the greenhouses and fish farm used in the Living with the Land ride. I’m a proud plant mom and adore Living with the Land, so getting to go backstage and learn more about the growing processes was absolutely fascinating. Disney has worked for a long time with the USDA and universities to test different methods for more sustainable, innovative farming (for example, in urban environments where space is limited, or in desert environments where plant nutrients are more difficult to come by), and they even have a guide for how visitors can grow their own edible garden using some of these techniques. A few highlights:
Tour Guides: The tour is led by a horticulturalist rather than a cast member, which is a really cool experience – the content is much more science-focused rather than pure entertainment, and our guide was very enthusiastic about her work.
Living with the Land: Just like the name of the ride, the growing techniques used throughout the greenhouses are focused on using available natural resources that work with each other for support, rather than resorting to chemical controls. A few examples:
- Pest management: They stop leaf miners from breeding in and destroying plants by introducing (very tiny!) predatory wasps, which stop the leaf miners’ production while preserving the plants.
- Hydroponics: This is a way of growing plants without soil, but instead using nutrient-rich water solutions. It actually minimizes water use, speeds growth, and cuts down on pests.
- Aeroponics: This is a growing technique where plants are suspended with their roots exposed and misted with nutrients – it uses far less water (up to 95% less) than traditional farming!
- Aquaponics: Through aquaponics, fish waste is used for plant nutrients, while plants filter the fishes’ water in a self-sustaining ecosystem.
- Vertical gardening: With this method, plants are grown on trellises or stacked to maximize space.
Greenhouses: The tour took us through the same greenhouses that you ride through on Living with the Land – it was a lot of fun to be up close with these incredible plants and learn about different cultivation techniques, like hydroponics, vertical gardening, growing from cuttings, and more. There were several greenhouses we visited:
- Temperate Greenhouse: This has plants from milder climates – like lettuce, peppers, and seasonal veggies.
- Creative Greenhouse: This is the cool-looking greenhouse with vertical gardens, hydroponics, and other innovative techniques used to grow and study plants.
- Aquaculture: We learned about aquaponics in this room – there were tanks filled with tilapia, bass, and shrimp here. With aquaponics, you can use fish waste to provide nutrients for plants, while the plants filter water for the fish.
- Tropical Greenhouse: This has a warmer, more humid environment than the other greenhouses and grows bananas, dragonfruit, papayas, and other warmer-climate plants.
Food: Microgreens, fruits, and vegetables grown here are used throughout the Disney parks! We got to try a delicious cucumber from the garden, and the next day at Animal Kingdom, we saw a salad made from greens over at EPCOT.
Tips for Visitors: This tour did not feel like it took an hour – our guide was fabulous at keeping things moving, answering questions, and providing tons of fascinating info about agricultural techniques and sustainability. It is a walking tour with limited seating, so if you have trouble staying on your feet for longer amounts of time, you may be uncomfortable. With that said, if you have even the slightest interest in gardening, sustainability, or innovation, it’s a wonderful addon to your EPCOT trip.
Sign at the start of the tour.
The Biotechnology Lab, where you can see plants growing in gel!
Giant squash with their roots hanging down – also some Living with the Land riders!
This is Stanley, a Sensitive Plant and the mascot for the greenhouse – when you touch his fronds, he closes them up.
A few of the vertical garden spots.
Hidden Mickey in the tank!
We got to try a delicious cucumber grown in the gardens right here at Disney!
Green onions with roots exposed and growing vertically.
Microgreens growing on sheets.
Another vertical garden.
A vertical spiral garden, which allows plants to have equal exposure to light, air, and water as it spins.
Hanging gardens!
These are growing in sand!
Another hidden Mickey!
And another hidden Mickey!
Vanilla growing and thriving in the sand.
Spice Garden in the Tropical Greenhouse!
Don’t you love the gradient on these tomatoes?
Dave and I in the Tropical Greenhouse!
Rides and Other Fun
We prioritized rides and entertainment over food and drink on this trip – we rope dropped EPCOT and were able to get on more rides than we usually do!
- Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure
- Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind (our song this time was I Ran, by A Flock of Seagulls!)
- Journey into Imagination with Figment
- Test Track (newly renovated!)
- Frozen Ever After
- Soarin’
A few more highlights: miniature trains in Germany, taiko drummers in Japan, an insanely sparkly EPCOT ball on display, and the one and only TIFFANY, who was this weekend’s Eat to the Beat performer!
Figment’s just so cute!
Upside-down Figment on Journey into Imagination!
The entrance to Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure.
A vignette that you can see in line for Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure.
Entering Gusteau’s at Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure.
A rat’s-eye view of the walk-in.
Trouble in the kitchen!
Party!
The fountain outside of Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure.
A cool car outside of Test Track.
They’ve updated Test Track! Here’s the view right before launching into the last part of the ride.
I love the taiko drummers! I have to watch a show every time we go to EPCOT.
The miniature trains are one of my favorite parts of EPCOT – there’s so much fun detail in the little town here!
Some more miniature fun
Bridges in the miniature town.
One of the miniature trains.
A miniature church.
Last one!
If I had piles and piles of cash lying around, I’d buy this incredibly sparkly EPCOT ball.
Eat to the Beat! We love these concerts – they’re such a blast!
It’s Tiffany!
Tiffany with backup singers!
More EPCOT Adventures
See our other EPCOT adventures:
EPCOT Food and Wine Festival 2022: Drinking Around the World
EPCOT International Flower & Garden Festival 2023: Flowers, Butterflies & Food
Photos: EPCOT International Festival of the Arts 2024
EPCOT International Flower & Garden Festival 2024: Bonsai, Butterflies & Tons of Fun
EPCOT Food & Wine Festival 2024: Pickle Milkshakes, Aloe Blacc, and Fireworks
EPCOT International Flower & Garden Festival 2025: Topiaries, Bonsai, and Incredible Eats!
About the Author
As the editor-in-chief of Frayed Passport, my goal is to help you build a lifestyle that lets you travel the world whenever you want and however long you want, and not worry about where your next paycheck will come from. I've been to 20+ countries and five continents, lived for years as a full-time digital nomad, and have worked completely remotely since 2015. If you would like to share your story with our community, or partner with Frayed Passport, get in touch with me using the form on our About page.All images by the author, Sarah Stone.
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