Tirol Chocolate – Zunda Shake

Certain colours draw me in when it comes to snacks. Blue for example, is a very cool colour for kids and the younger folk, but the older I get it seems less and less natural to me, which it is. Have you ever noticed how uncommon a strong, blue colour is in nature? I feel like the blues I do see are typically very toxic, lethal, poisonous or all three. Something about a pale green seems very appetizing for me. It seems like a natural colour, and typically very non-threatening. A lot of my favourite flavours also come in green, like matcha and melon.

Admittedly the green colour is what drew me to this flavour. Zunda is the term used to describe a bean paste created by grinding edamame beans. Edamame is basically the immature or “unripe” version of soybeans, and have a slightly different flavour and texture. Most people who have experienced it tend to have it as a nice healthy snack where part of the fun is popping it out of it’s pod. Given that this is a bean, I imagine it will be similar in concept to red bean paste with a slightly different flavour and texture.

The company Zunda Saryo, started off in Sendai in the Miyagi Prefecture in Japan where zunda is sort of a local culinary invention. They use the paste in a variety of different ways, like in mochi, shakes and over shaved ice. Interestingly enough, it’s become so popular that they’ve opened a location in Hawaii. Given how popular it’s become, it only makes sense that Tirol would do a collaboration with them.

Visually, these chocolates are a nice, pleasing pastel green to the eye, with the bottom layer being a bit white. The pieces smell a little like a soy bean milk, and I can see what appears to be small bits of edamame at the bottom as well.

The texture is quite pleasant for me – there’s a syrup which I believe emulates the zunda, and there’s soft vanilla flavoured chocolate, as well as the bits of edamame. It all comes together to remind me of an actual milkshake. You know, the ones where you can still taste bits and pieces of what the original inspiration is. Like strawberry cheesecake milkshakes that have bits of strawberry still in it. Mmmmmmm… Anyways, overall I liked how the textural components come together to remind me of an actual milkshake, so it’s well done in my books.

The flavour of this is fairly mild, and would be best described as soybean like. The flavour is fairly mild, and along with the pieces of edamame in the middle, it reminds me a lot of eating a red bean paste, except it tastes more like soy beans. The main difference from red bean paste is the distinct flavour of edamame. While I wouldn’t say it’s savoury, my brain somehow associates it with salt, maybe because so much of my life involves edamame that is lightly salted. The vanilla flavour is what helps remind me that this is a sweet, as edamame doesn’t typically have much of a sweet taste to it, at least not the same way that red bean does. Somehow, they manage to create a refreshing, almost bright flavour to it, and I appreciate that. It also has a nice clean finish to it.

While the flavour of this is foreign to me, it’s overall a very well done piece which I thoroughly enjoyed. The best endorsement I can give this is that I really want to try and actual Zunda shake now.