Coffee Crisp – Pops

Coffee Crisp is a uniquely Canadian candy bar. I’m not too sure how it really ended up being cemented as a Canadian snack icon, but here we are. I’ve also mentioned I don’t particularly enjoy coffee or coffee adjacent things, but I do enjoy coffee crisp when the option presents itself. So you can imagine my intrigue when I see that they have ball shaped format of a favourite snack of mine.

I remember back in the early 2000s when there was a big push for spherical versions of iconic bars, like Kit-Kat, Reese’s’, and York peppermint patties. To say that I love those was an understatement, and I’m still sad they phased those out. This is probably as close as we will get to a revival of those, so I am a bit excited. Just a little bit.

They are like if you took a coffee crisp bar, and compressed it into a tiny ball. Generally I am a big fan of turning beloved candy bars into smaller, bite sized balls. The ratio is obviously different, but it still works here. The thing that is different here though, is the addition of little bits of puffed rice to the outer chocolate coating. The chocolate is thick enough that it doesn’t quite feel like the same level of crisp when you bite into these, versus the bar. This is sort of like sparkling water – you can taste the flavour somewhat, but it pretty much just tastes like water that had fruit peels left in the water for a few minutes and then taken out. Like something is missing. Like it has hints of something. But I can see why some people would enjoy this.

the flavour is the classic coffee crisp formula, and the only real difference here is the texture and mouth feel. Obviously the ratio here is different, since when you bite into a bar of Coffee Crisp you get just the edges with a thin chocolate, where is this is a chocolate ball that happens to have a chunk of wafer inside. The ratio is pretty key, since the chocolate here is much thicker and not as soft like the gentle enrobing the bar does. The emphasis here is more on the chocolate, with the coffee and wafer taking a backseat, whereas the original bar is the reverse. The flavour is then a bit more muted here on the coffee front, since the chocolate dominates. Some may enjoy that more, but personally I prefer the wafer and coffee flavour more. Weird given I don’t like coffee.

I guess this will ultimately depend on how you feel about the ratios – if you prefer more chocolate then these will be more enjoyable than the bar. If you enjoy the light, airy crispness of the bar then you might enjoy this a bit less. Also given it’s size, these make it easier to do portion control, and these are absolutely more fun to share and much easier than trying to split a whole bar and getting messy crumbs everywhere. And I mean everywhere.