Takis – Intense Nacho

Takis don’t come out with new flavours nearly as often or as blazingly fast as the American brands, but that’s fine. It just gives me more time to appreciate the ones they do have. Because I tend to associate most of their flavours with colours, seeing this one made me do a bit of a double take.

At first I thought this was just a rebrand of another flavour, Xplosion. As it turns out, this is a “new” flavour and unlike Xplosion, this isn’t even mild, this is “non-spicy”. Now, it’s been long established in the lore that I am a notorious spice wimp, which is only offset but my general adventurous nature when it comes to snacks of the hot kind. But even I found it to be highly suspect when they say that Xplosion is mild. Mild implied there was some sort of spice somewhere to be found, hiding behind a bush. Those were salty, but not spicy. It’s for that reason that I am curious how these will be. How do you end up even less spicy than no spice??

These are visually identical to Xplosion and smell similar. I don’t know if it’s the seasoning inconsistency, but these also look less orange and saturated. In terms of actual flavour though, they are different from the intensity of Xplosion. The best way I can think to describe it is the same zesty flavour of Xplosion, but missing the flavour of spice. I don’t mean the heat from spice, but something about the flavour seems less complex and a little more flat, but straight forward. It has the same zesty nacho flavour as Zesty Doritos, with a blend of cheeses to give it a bit of tang while keeping the savoury notes of cheese. They also seem less salty, so putting back a bunch of these in succession is much easier.

The texture is the same as any other Takis with it’s rolled tortilla greatness making it easier to eat (for me at least) and giving it more of a doubled up crunch that I love. Clearly there are dozens of us rolled tortilla chip lovers, because tons of other brands have tried similar things.

I suspect these will simply replace Xplosion if it does well, or be sold as the non-spicy version of it. Either way I enjoyed it and would get it again if Xplosion isn’t available. As it stands though I slightly prefer Xplosion. But I also acknowledge that my spice tolerance is not that bad compared to some of my peers, so maybe this will attract a wider audience than Xplosion. Only time will tell.