Tirol Chocolate – Tart Cake Mix
With the weather getting hot and sticky, I’ve tried to minimize the number of international orders I do for chocolate. Sadly, this perfectly rational, logical approach to purchasing goes out the window whenever I see a new variety of Tirol for sale. Today’s review is a prime example of that lapse in my judgement. I was originally going to pass on this, but I noticed a bunch of other summer flavour releases and I couldn’t resist. When I first found out about this variety, it was sold out pretty quickly, so I figured it has to be somewhat popular.
The chocolate tart looks like it’s supposed to have the standard biscuit, along with some syrup on the inside. Apart from the obvious heat and melting that the poor piece of chocolate went through, it looks to be the typical milk chocolate exterior with the unmistakable Tirol pattern. Admittedly, I mostly bought this mix to see what the hubbub is about, seeing as it sold out so quickly. I’m not expecting too much out of this.
As advertised, the inside is comprised of the standard biscuit piece inside, with a relatively generous helping of chocolate syrup on top of it. It turns out that the standard biscuit milk chocolate variety is one of Tirol’s more popular flavours, but I for some reason am not a huge fan of it. It’s good then, that I went into this with low expectations. It’s largely personal preference, since the combination of milk chocolate and biscuit doesn’t do much for me. I’m sure if I was, this would be elevated to the next level. As it is now, it reminds me of a chocolate Pocky with a bit of extra chocolate syrup, which is actually quite nice. I just don’t find myself enjoying this particular combination.
The strawberry tart looks very similar to the strawberry shortcake flavour I reviewed earlier, as part of the strawberry mix. While I really enjoyed the strawberry shortcake flavour, I’m less excited about trying repeats, but I guess there’s only one way to be sure. I’m actually wondering at what point I will start tasting varieties that are just double ups or recolours of previous versions I’ve tried. Is it going to get to the point where every review I do is complaining about duplicates or re-issued flavours?! Moving on…
So looking at the appearance on the outside, it looks identical to the strawberry shortcake piece from the previous review. It looks a little more “traveled”, but apart from that it appears to be the same. It appears to have the same texture and smell as well. To reiterate what I said in the previous review, this piece is basically like eating a strawberry Pocky, with some bits of freeze dried strawberry and biscuit mixed in. You end up with a easier to eat, denser, square version of a strawberry Pocky, which can either be a good or bad thing in your preference. For me, it’s better, so I’m down for this.
I would say if you see this on a shelf, and it’s not over $3 CAD, grab it and give it a try. If you like Pocky in general, I think this is a great mix to try. If not, it might be better to pass on this and save the money to try a different variety, like the strawberry mix. As a standalone flavour mix, it’s perfectly fine. Given that I’ve had the other varieties just as readily available to me, I’m not sure I would spring for this one over any of the others. But it’s always good to try everything at least once.
