I was a little confused by the name of this Tirol variety pack, as my knowledge of Japanese proverbs is rather limited. The full Japanese is 桃栗三年柿八年 (momo kuri sannen kaki hachinen), which roughly translates to "it takes time for one's actions to bear fruit." More literally, it means "peaches and chestnuts in 3 years, persimmons in 8." Please correct me if my translation is bad.
I loved the cute characters on the bag and chocolate wrappers, although the peach is a little creepy. I'm pretty familiar with peaches and chestnuts, but I have never tried persimmon (even though I do see them at the supermarket occasionally). According to Wikipedia, the taste is similar to plums and dates. However, I'm not sure it matters for this review - I'll get into that in a minute.
First, I tried the creepy peach. It smelled like peach, and had a gooey gummy center. The gummy did have the texture of peach flesh, but the flavor was nearly overpowered by the taste of sugar. It seemed like most of the fruit flavor was in the chocolate. This was too sweet for me, and something about the peach flavor felt a little fake.
Chestnut smelled toasted, and had a strong, nutty flavor with hints of coffee. It wasn't as overwhelmingly sweet as the peach, but the white chocolate could have been a little richer. The glaze in the middle was nice, though, and overall, I was satisfied.
Last up was persimmon, but as you can see in the picture, this one was actually more like chocolate coated senbei. I'm not sure where the persimmon comes in, and am hoping that one of my readers can help me understand. Still, this was my favorite of the three. The milk chocolate (which seemed a little waxy here) went so well with the mild soy sauce flavor of the crunchy cracker center. It was very well balanced, and I would love to have a bag of just this variety (maybe with a few chestnut thrown in). Forget the peach.
On their own, I would say peach is a C+, chestnut is a B+, and persimmon is an A-. Overall, that averages to a B!
Check out another review of this pack at Tasty Japan!
Tirol website
3 comments:
I'm not sure that I agree with the description of the flavor of persimmons. Part of the difficulty of snack reviewing in general is that you're trying to convey taste through words, and it doesn't always work. That being said, I think persimmon doesn't lend itself well to being included in sweets. It's no something which concentrates well. I've made persimmon bread before and it wasn't great. Fresh persimmons are lovely, but they're not as flexible as bananas or other fruit.
This was another Tirol variety pack that I passed on because I'm so off of Tirol these days, but your review has piqued my curiosity! :-)
I've got this bag sitting in my fridge waiting to review...I've been on a diet so I have hesitation about eating too many sugary things though I intend to get around to it.
I love kaki and momo sweets so hopefully I will love these too. Great review :)
Orchid64 - Next time I see persimmons at my grocery store, I will pick one up. Still, the persimmon Tirol surprised me! If you do try them, please let me know what you think!
Tasty Japan - Balancing snack reviewing with a diet is rough...especially with so much tempting chocolate. But at least Tirol are small, so you can have a little indulgence every now and then.
Post a Comment