Tirol Chocolate – Bitter Crunch
Do you ever have a go to flavour when it comes to snacks or chocolates? I feel that most people do. I say this because certain flavours seem to be very common across brands and snacks. Chocolate mint for example, as polarizing as it can be apparently, is still a mainstay in the pantheon of standard flavours. Maybe a better example would be almonds, or peanut butter.
The flavour today seems like it was an obvious choice, and yet in another way it does not. Let me explain. When you think of chocolate, you probably would think to yourself, a flavour that has a lot of crunch or an interesting texture to it should be a no-brainer. But how much thought do we actually put into what goes into making that texture? There are certain fillings that we can agree have a great texture, like cookie pieces. But what about things like corn flakes?
If you haven’t already, I highly recommend trying the Ritter Sport Cornflakes flavour. It sounds strange, I know. But until you actually try it, it doesn’t seem all that appetizing or tasty. And yet, it works. Thinking on it now, it seems so obvious to me. But for me to have reached that point, I had to get over a huge mental barrier. Chocolate covered cereal? What kind of animal would do that?
This comes back to the flavour Tirol has come up with known as Bitter Crunch. I’m going to be perfectly honest, I have no idea what exactly is in this. What I do know is that it’s supposed to be very crunchy, and is covered in dark chocolate. I feel like this is something they’ve tried before, but my only basis for thinking that is because it seems obvious for a snacking, bite sized chocolate.
I love dark chocolate. I’d say my ideal range is somewhere between 65% to 80% cocoa, and it depends on what I’m feeling. The lower tail of cocoa content is easier for snacking and mixing with stuff like nuts, while the higher content is more for eating on it’s own, preferably with a milk.
The bottom of this piece has a lot going on. It looks like someone took a cookie and crushed it, pouring some dark chocolate on it. It also has that nice, mellow smell that low percent dark chocolate has, probably something around 60%?
These pieces have those cute little images on the top instead of the checkered pattern. A nice change of scenery. Even on the top, I can see some “crunch” pieces poking out. It looks like there’s more than just cookie pieces, since there’s something that looks a bit yellowish. Could it be corn flakes?!
Biting into it, I can indeed confirm there is a lot of crunch going on. There’s multiple levels of crunch though, there’s the softer, cookie like crunch and the harder crunch coming from something that reminds me of cornflakes. I may be imagining it, but I feel like I could also get a hint of a crunch that’s similar to rice cracker crunch. You know, the really crunchy kind that ends up leaving pieces lodged in your teeth. With a piece like this, it’s really hard not to just keep crunching until everything is gone. I have a habit of trying to let dark chocolate melt in my mouth, but the crunch is just too tempting. Before I know it, the piece is done and gone, and I’m left wanting more. As mentioned, the flavour is dark chocolate, and it’s not the super bitter ones. It works as the perfect balance to the filling, it doesn’t distract or detract from it.
As far as I can tell, this piece is hardly breaking the mold, and isn’t doing anything revolutionary. On the contrary, it feels like this is something that’s been a long time coming and I can’t believe it wasn’t done sooner, or wasn’t already a main staple flavour.
This is good, and in a “I would buy these by the handful” kind of way. With that being said, I would caution against going crazy on these. This is one of those larger pieces, and each piece is around 50 calories. Unless you have very strong self control, you may find yourself popping these non-stop.
