Had you driven through Wellington Circle in Medford this past Tuesday, you’d have thought that some chart-busting band was performing there, or maybe that the circus was in town, or the pope. In fact, the stalled traffic, the cordons, the corrals, the cheerleaders, the TV trucks, the police details, the PR reps, the sun-scorched throngs who lined up with expressions of infinite patience — all this hoopla was for nothing more dramatic than a new kind of doughnut.

New to us, anyway.

This week, as you are no doubt already aware, Krispy Kreme hit town. Bostonians have been hearing about these doughnuts for years. People would return from places like New Orleans and Oklahoma City sounding like Ulysses. We’d hear fantastical tales of doughnuts glazed with the nectar of the gods, confections that dissolved on the tongue like fried gossamer. No surprise, then, that the entire city seemed to have turned out to play a part in the Krispy Kreme extravaganza.

I myself set out on Tuesday morning with my friend Nick, determined to see what all the fuss was about. We drove by the Honey Dew shops with barely a second glance. We sped by Dunkin’ Donuts franchises with little huffs of derision. At one roadside doughnut place, the parking lot was barren. A NOW OPEN sign flapped forlornly in the breeze. This day belonged to Krispy.

As we sat and broiled in the snarled traffic, I began to feel a rising sense of unease. The thing is, so much in life fails to live up to our expectations — the new Radiohead CD, Plymouth Rock, sex. What if Krispy Kremes weren’t all they’d been cracked up to be? Because, it must be said, these doughnuts have been cracked up to an almost absurd degree.

Writing in the New York Times Magazine, Roy Blount Jr. called Krispy Kremes " the best doughnuts in creation. " In the New Yorker, Nora Ephron described their arrival in the Big Apple as a " religious experience. " On the day the Medford shop opened, the Boston Globe devoted an entire page to Krispy Kremes and the " cult-like devotion " they inspire. I mean, how good can these things be?

" They melt in your mouth, " said one of the 10,000 or so PR people milling about in the Krispy Kreme parking lot.

" They’re a little slice of heaven, " added another.

With this, she ushered us past the snaking lines and into Krispy Kreme’s well-appointed interior. This is where the " doughnut theater " occurs — the exposed production line wherein the dough goes from glob to perfect circle via an elaborate series of conveyors and lifts. At one point, our PR escort described the " waterfall of glaze " in awed tones, as though it were one of the Wonders of the World. " Isn’t that something? " she cooed.

Yes, it was something, but I wanted more. I wanted to put one of these fabled doughnuts into my mouth. Maybe they’d live up to the hype after all. Maybe I really would close my eyes, go weak at the knees, and groan with exquisite pleasure. " Can I have one? " I asked. A few seconds later, I was eating a Krispy Kreme under the watchful gaze of various Krispy Kreme employees. " Mmmm, " I said. " Mmmm! "

It tasted ... okay.

I was, after all, disappointed by my Krispy Kreme experience, but I was clearly in a minority. The people who trudged out into the bright sunlight, laboring under the weight of as many as six or seven dozen doughnuts, bore expressions of unalloyed happiness. I asked one woman, who carried a plastic bag stuffed with Krispy Kremes, why she had waited in line for 45 minutes to avail herself of some fried dough. " Curiosity, " she said.