Tirol Mix 9, Part 1

I got this around Christmas time from Cybercandy - I was so pleased to see that they had started stocking actual Japanese candy again, not just stuff licensed out from Japanese companies to Thai factories. The quality just wasn't as high on the snacks from there - waxier chocolate, for example. Also nice to note that Japan Centre is now stocking more Japanese snacks again...seems that the fears after the Fukushima incident have died down. Good news for fans of exotic candy!

So, in the interest of maintaining my diet, I'll be splitting this 9-pack into 2 or 3 reviews.

Very nice packaging - they're all individually wrapped and quite charmingly illustrated in different styles. I decided I'd go for Hot Cake, Bis(cuit), and the one in the middle that isn't visible - it just says Tirol, anyway.

Hey, there they are. The difference between the packaging is quite striking - the 'Tirol' looks like a classic, olden-timey chocolate wrapper, BIS looks a bit retro with the heavily stylized illustration of a biscuit, and the Hot Cake is more modern Japanese snack packaging with the realistic photo of the food. The one I was most looking forward was definitely Hot Cake, especially when I noticed that they specified butter and maple.

As you can see, the Tirol & Biscuit are milk chocolate, while the Hot Cake is white. It's a nice effect how the filling sort of can be seen through the Hot Cake.

This camera is so much better for cross sections - but I should probably stop just biting them in half. You could probably get a solid lead on my dental records from this blog.

The Tirol chocolate was the first I tried, and it was unexpected. I expected it to be a plain chocolate, and I was surprised that it was a peanut flavored taffy on the inside. It was a bit like a chewier Snickers without the nuts or caramel. A bit disappointing, but I kind of hate chewy fillings in chocolate. Chalk it up to a couple bad experiences with Riesin as a kid, what can I say...I've got fillings.

The biscuit was also a bit of a disappointment, because it was quite flavorless. The chocolate itself isn't the highest quality (in Japan, Tirol is quite cheap) so it really depends on the filling for taste. Unfortunately, this biscuit was neither sweet nor salty, just sort of...crunchy & bland.

The Hot Cake one, however, was worth the price of admission. The white chocolate was buttery and the inner mousse was buttery & sweet - the little pocket of more liquid-y sauce really did taste like maple. Huzzah! It was a nice approximation of a pancake, for sure.

I'm looking forward to having a few more of these Tirols - the 'Milk' and lemon ones in particular.

These are still available at Cybercandy, so if you're interested the price ain't so bad at all at £2.30.