Tirol Chocolate – Sakuranbo Cherry Dagashi

As is customary with Tirol, they do some seasonal crossover/collaboration flavours each year, and this is part of the most recent rotation. Dagashi is a general term for cheap or inexpensive snacks. These are snacks that kids could buy with their weekly allowance from a local convenience store or shop. The treat these are based off of are like little mochi candies.

This is a collaboration with a brand known as Kyoshin and their iconic cherry mochi candies. The actual candy comes in these small squares and are very gummy like. Or mochi like depending on how you look at it. I have only tried the actual candy once before, and found it to be a very chewy candy that reminded me of fruit snacks.

As you can imagine, dagashi are cheap snacks and it would be unreasonable to expect anything too quality or fancy. It’s simple stuff that’s either nostalgic or done well. Sometimes iconic too, but generally inexpensive is the name of the game. I’m not expecting anything fancy and as long as it tastes ok, that’s already a glowing review for these types of products.

The flavour is not quite the cherry I’m used to here in the frigid North. It’s very floral and the chocolate itself is very floral as well as the candy pieces. It also reminds me of Turkish delight in the sense that it feels like there’s rose water or some sort of flower being used to flavour this. I can’t say it’s my favourite flavour, but I can see how it has merits. With a treat like this though, I don’t think the flavour itself is the main selling point, but rather the texture. Though I could be wrong, some kids might love this for the weird floral cherry flavour it has.

The candy pieces are small, very firm gummy like bits of chewiness. They are firmer than the usual mochi that Tirol does, but it’s good and not firm to the point that I question whether these are stale. They aren’t near Haribo levels, but chewy enough that even after the chocolate melts away in your mouth, you may still be chewing these. The candy itself is quite a joy to gnash on with your teeth, and there’s reason the source material is iconic.

I actually enjoy the texture of these more than the flavour. I expect the flavour is more adjusting to a different concept of cherry, as opposed to not enjoying it. These are unique (at least to me) and I can’t really think of a more common snack equivalent. These are worth trying at least once in your lifetime though.