Galbo Chocolate Mini – Milk Tea
Being the titan of industry that they are, Meiji has a ton of brands, just looking at their confectionery arm. While I’ve had many childhood experiences with a many of their brands, there are still many I haven’t gotten to trying. Galbo is one of them. To be honest, I never paid it much attention because I was always under the impression the centre is a cookie, and I typically don’t like chocolate covered cookies. They’re usually too dry for my liking, and just remind me of unwanted Christmas cookies. You know, the ones that coworkers and acquaintances give you as a “I-don’t-know-what-you-like-so-I-got-you-this” gift. The chocolate covered biscuits are usually the one’s that end up left over, and someone always decides to open a new sleeve before the old one is finished.
The package is actually quite small, and upon opening it I count about 7 pieces. The pieces themselves are actually quite large, and bigger than what I was expecting. In fact, the pieces are a 1:1 scale of the image on the packaging, which threw me off. Usually packaging has a bigger image than the actual product, and includes a little disclaimer that “photo enlarged to show texture” or some jazz like that. Colour me pleasantly surprised. Of course, the obvious downside to this is that you only get seven pieces. Also not sure I would call these mini, but I haven’t seen the non-mini version so who knows.
The texture is quite interesting. I was expecting, based on the image that the outside was a chocolate coating and the inside would be a crisp, crunchy cookie. While the outside coating is as I expected, albeit a little thicker than I expected (which is actually a plus), the inside is not quite a crispy cookie. It’s not quite crunchy in a crumbly way and has a soft, almost moist texture to them. I would liken them to a cross between a cookie and a brownie. It starts off a little grainy like a cookie, but seems to kind of melt away into a moist brownie like texture that ends up feeling like you’re just eating chocolate. It’s admittedly hard to describe, but I also can’t stop myself. But in a good way. Like when you get a huge pimple on your face that you can’t help but pop. Ok maybe not the best metaphor to use, but you get the point – it’s oddly satisfying.
The flavour is very similar to other milk tea flavoured chocolates I’ve had in recent months – the chocolate seems to be based on a black tea mixed with milk to even out the drinks and cut the earthy, acidic notes. It’s not too sweet, and does a fairly good job nailing that distinct black tea taste. As far as I can tell, the outer layer is supposed to be the milk tea layer, but I can’t tell if the inner layer is a different flavour, or is just the cookie piece.
Something I’ve noticed with a lot of these milk tea flavoured chocolates is that they don’t leave much of an aftertaste in the mouth. Maybe I’ve been drinking the wrong milk teas, but I feel like they usually leave a more noticeable aftertaste in my mouth. But as I usually say, I prefer things that don’t leave much of an aftertaste, since it leaves my palate clean to eat and snack on other things later, if I so choose.
These are certainly different from what I’m used to when it comes to chocolates, but definitely in a good way. I wouldn’t mind trying other flavours to see how they hold up. One thing I appreciate about these is the outer layer seems to be coated so that it is slightly melt resistant (like most chocolate coated candies), and they aren’t as messy to handle as normal chocolate. it makes snacking and sharing easier, though let’s be honest…with only 7 pieces, you’ll probably want these all for yourself.
