Toppo – Double Strawberry

These days with all the craziness going on, I try to find joy in the small things. For me, this includes finding random, interesting snacks I haven’t tried yet on the internet, and paying hefty sums to obtain them. Some people have expensive cars, purses, watches, handbags and jewellery. I have snacks and candy.

The double strawberry in the name is the combination of the Benihoppe and Akihime varieties from Japan. Benihoppe are somewhat longer in appearance than other strawberries, and because of how pretty and vibrant they look, are used as gift fruits and to adorn pastries. They are a sweet, juicy variety, with little to no tartness. Akihime strawberries are smaller, rounder looking and tend to be softer, with little to no acidity to them. If I’m being honest, I don’t imagine the combination of these two varieties to be very different from choosing one or another as the base for creating the flavour. Ultimately it probably just comes down to marketing. But as a fan of Toppo and strawberry chocolate, I’m down for this either way.

I’ve noticed that Toppo seems to come in two different “sizes”. By that I mean they come in either a smaller, rectangular box, or a larger, slightly rounded edge box. The boxes like this one with the slightly rounded edges are larger, but have the same weight as the regular rectangular boxes. The difference comes in what’s inside the box. I can’t be sure, but it seems like these larger boxes are the “premium” version, and each of the two pouches has about 7 larger sticks inside. The smaller rectangular boxes have two pouches as well, but each pouch has about 12 sticks. Given that they weight the same, the difference is mostly the size of the sticks, and not even so much the ratio. The bigger sticks have more chocolate, but the pretzel is also thicker and more substantial.

While these bigger sticks are slightly more expensive, I tend to prefer them because of how hearty and thick they are. Which brings me to texture. As mentioned in my previous review, they have a nice, thick pretzel like texture to them. The outer layer is nice and slick to the touch, but not greasy. A benefit of this straw format is the chocolate is all on the inside, so even in hot weather you won’t get stick, nasty fingers from eating these. The pretzel is nice and crispy, but like a good quality pretzel it breaks pretty cleanly and doesn’t leave shattered crumbs everywhere like a typical biscuit would. I don’t feel like I emphasize enough how clean to snack on these are. Good for when you’re on the run. Don’t want those bounty hunters tracing your steps through crumbs, right? That or a nosy coworker noticing your thicc sticks and wanting a piece.

The flavour is unsurprisingly, strawberry. I don’t know that I can tell that difference between double strawberry, and just normal strawberry. As is always the case, I tend to give extra points to things that have a clean finish, and don’t leave too much linger flavour to them. It’s important to know your place, and flavours that linger too long overstay their welcome and just make things awkward. Like when you’re friends are over for a dinner party, its 2am and they still don’t get that you have work early in the morning and you’ll see them next week, so they should probably leave. Some people. These sticks don’t leave any nasty after tastes in your mouth that super artificial strawberry candies do, and I love them for it. They have a good balance of sweet berry flavour, and have a fairly toned down floral notes to them. There’s almost no tartness to this, so the flavour is fairly simple – nothing complicated here.

Overall, I’d say these are very similar to the Triple Berry flavour that I tried a while back. The flavour is similar enough I would probably not notice too much difference if I wasn’t paying attention. The biggest difference is that flavour had a bit more tart berry flavour to it, and tasted more like a mixed berry flavour than purely strawberry. Whether you would prefer that or this flavour would largely come down to preference.

If I saw these, I would buy them again. I get the feeling these might be a limited flavour though. I’m not too fussed though, as I imagine Toppo would have a regular strawberry flavour, or berry flavour somewhere in their line up. I’m sure those won’t be too far apart from these, so if you see a berry flavour, grab it and give it a try.