Storck – RIESEN Chewy Caramel
Certain candies and snacks bring a lot of nostalgia to me, and bring me back down memory lane. This one in particular brings me back to a simpler time when I was a kid and spent a lot of time studying near the local public library. My reward to myself for spending a few hours studying hard and trying to be a good student was to buy some candy. Back in those days I went more for quantity over quality, and tried to make the most of my allowances. Interestingly enough, I chanced upon these which were both inexpensive, and tasty. They had the added bonus of being a candy I could leave in my mouth like a hard candy and make the experience last longer.
At some point I sort of forgot about it, and branched out into other things, but I never disliked it. I just sort of left it behind. But that changes today – while it may have increased in price and shrunk in size due to inflation and the harshness of time, I want to see if it holds up.
Interestingly, RIESEN claims to be Germany’s first branded candy, introduced in the early 1930s. It’s definitely a candy that has withstood the test of time, and manages to stay popular despite never changing the general taste and texture. My personal experience with it has spanned a few decades so I can attest to the timeless nature of the candy.
Each piece is in a foil wrap, and has a very pleasing, uniform looking rectangular shape. The coating also seems to be thick enough that it reminds me of those chocolate coated truffles or chocolates you find in high end boutiques, where everything is rounded and has a nice shape to it. The chocolate layer is as I remember it – not overly sweet, distinct cocoa flavour and a pretty decent thickness to it. The inner caramel is pretty sizeable, and is unlike most caramels you would experience. These caramels are not your typical ones, as they are mixed with chocolate so they are not quite as sweet, but also like the perfect mix between a caramel and a chocolate.
The texture is also very similar to an actual chocolate, where the outer layer is thick, and if you leave it in your mouth has a nice smooth melt to it. The caramel on the inside is admittedly quite firm, but a few bites and it gets quite sticky, also like other caramels. It’s quite dense though, and if you aren’t careful it may pull out a filling, so be warned. I actually enjoy just leaving it in my mouth and letting it melt slowly, and letting it warm up the caramel before I start to try chewing it.
It definitely hasn’t changed at all from when I was a kid, and you know what? That’s not a bad thing for this candy. When you are so close to perfection, you don’t really need to change much.
