Black Thunder – Hokkaido Melon

I’ve had a lot of melon flavoured chocolate in my time, and in a weird way it somehow works. I can’t explain it, but it just works. Maybe it’s the combination of dairy and the natural sweetness of melon that pairs well, but things like melon milk shake or melon ice cream just pairs wonderfully. I can’t imagine Black Thunder would be able to mess this up, but let’s find out.

Certain colours just look sort of off to me when I eat chocolate. Something about this creamy orange looking coating is ever so slightly unsettling. On the plus side it smells amazingly melony, and reminds me of a Melona ice cream bar. I guess in that way this looks like someone took a Melona bar, took the stick off, cut it in half and stuck something black in the centre. Still looks kind of weird if you ask me.

The texture which is largely dictated by the classic cookie encased in the melon chocolate, is the typical affair here. It has a biscuity, crunchy texture but isn’t hard in any way. It’s got a similar texture to a cookie of an Oreo, but it doesn’t melt into a mess and leave bits stuck to your teeth afterwards. It has a fairly clean finish which always leaves me wanting more.

The flavour of the melon chocolate coating reminds me of Melona and other asian styled melon snacks in that it is it very creamy and has a dairy quality to it. The melon flavour is quite sweet and has a distinct cantaloupe and honeydew flavour to it. The chocolate biscuit on the inside basically just tastes like an Oreo. The creamy outer chocolate basically just reminds me of some sort of melon flavoured Oreo. That sounds weird, but if it tastes anything like this you would be intrigued, in a good way. They could probably market this as an ice cream flavoured chocolate bar and you wouldn’t be far off. It’s got the right balance of creamy dairy chocolate and fruity melon without veering too far off into either direction.

As you would expect, I enjoyed this. Big surprise. And as usual my only complain is these are too small for their own good. I end up wasting wrappers from having to buy more of these, when they could just stick a bigger bar in one wrapper. Is that so much to ask for?