Lorenz – Crunchips X-Cut Paprika
Lorenz is a snack company with a long history dating back to 1889 and founded in Germany. They had humble start as a biscuit maker before branching out into savoury snacks like pretzels, chips and all other sorts of snacks we find the equivalent of in other parts of the world. Turns out potato chips are a universal thing wherever you go. The flavours on the other hand…
I’ve known for a while now that paprika as a flavour is a relatively big thing in Europe, particularly places like Germany. But I only know that because I have dipped my toes into that world of snacking. Had I not done that, it would probably have shocked me to know how popular it is. From what I’ve been told it started as a flavour that was big in Hungary and just migrated over to Germany when brands started producing snacks there as well. It makes me wonder if it would ever catch on here in the Frigid North. Personally I enjoy the flavour more than some of the ones we have here from the US.
These are quite red. The seasoning on these is generous, to put it one way. The flavour is honestly pretty mild, and it doesn’t have much going on. It is mostly just a potato chip with some very mild paprika seasoned on top. The seasoning itself doesn’t add much, so while it does have a flavour that is distinct from regular salted, it’s nothing defining or distinct enough. Having said that, I still feel like I would gravitate towards this flavour over the good old fashioned, plain, regular salted ones. These have the side benefit of making someone think I’m eating something spicy when in reality there’s none at all. These are quite the angry looking chip, but docile at heart. Like a dog with all bark and no bite.
The texture is similar to Lays Wavy, but with tighter ridges. The chip itself is not that hard or thick, so it’s sort of a middle ground. It strikes a decent balance between being too thick and thin, and has just the right amount of crunch. I fully acknowledge I err on the side of thicker crunch, but I think this will please the most number of people as far as chip crunch goes.
While this version of paprika was not particularly strong or flavourful, I still enjoyed the overall experience more than the generic wavy chips that Lays does over here in the West. I can confidently say I would likely take these over a bag of Lays from here, so to me that’s a win for Lorenz. I look forward to trying some of their other offerings.
