Tirol Chocolate – Choco Mint Mochi
What says Christmas, holidays and festive cheer like chocolate mint? Better yet, what’s better than chocolate mint and Tirol? The wonderful marriage of the two! While this is supposedly more of a summer seasonal flavour in Japan, I wasn’t able to get any of these until now, so we’re going with my narrative. Because it’s better.
Appearance wise, this thing is very refreshing to look at. It has that nice, pastel mint colour on the top with the darker chocolate on the base. It smells like every mint chocolate ice cream ever. Well, the typical stuff at least. Not the fancy, artisanal stuff. Sometimes the basic stuff is good, ya know?
The cross-section reveals a lot going on inside. As melted and flattened as this may look, you can still probably see the layers going on here. I am instantly reminded me of the chocolate mochi flavour I tried a while back. The basic layering is similar here – there’s a chewy mochi piece in the centre, with a layer of syrup on top, and the whole thing is sandwiched between two pieces of chocolate shell, the top layer being a mint flavoured chocolate and the bottom being a darker chocolate, thus completing the mint chocolate combo.
As with most mochi based Tirol pieces, the mochi centre gives the entire piece a nice chew to keep it from just being a syrup filled chocolate. There’s a decent amount of mint syrup in there to help add a bit of flavour, but make no mistake – the texture is almost entirely from the mochi piece. If you like mochi as much as I do, this will be perfect for you. The chocolate itself is fairly standard affair, and mostly is there for flavour.
The flavour is very reminiscent of mint chocolate chip…well anything. Especially ice cream, with the freshening sensation of the mint syrup. The mint works quite well with the chocolate that comes in two flavours – mint and semi-sweet. The combo is that of a typical ice cream. Fortunately it doesn’t taste too sweet or artificial, as some mint chocolate chip ice creams end up. Some even end up tasting a bit like toothpaste. Guilty confession – I don’t mind the toothpaste taste in certain snacks like Oreo’s. But that’s a non-issue here, and what you have is a refreshing, chewy piece of chocolate.
These are also of the larger size, so they can be found individually at convenient stores, unlike the smaller pieces that come in pouches of 7. Sadly, these are not readily available in North America, and takes a bit of online shopping to procure. If you can find it (they seem to be both limited and popular, aka. sold out), pull the trigger. It might be pricey, but you won’t get a second chance. And you won’t want to miss out on this one.