12.14.08
Toppo (milk chocolate Ghana 60th anniversary)
Here is a good example, I think, of the things you can get off of J-List that you might not necessarily find in your local Asian snacks store (unless your Asian snacks store happens to be in Asia): Limited run 60th anniversary snackage. Actually, I’m assuming these are going to have a limited run of at most a year because otherwise Lotte will run into the 61st anniversary and that’s not exactly a milestone.
I had to do a bit of looking around to figure out what was so Ghana, chocolate, and 60th anniversary about these Toppo and it turns out that Lotte turned 60 this year (and is celebrating by branding their sweeties with the announcement) and that Ghana grows cocoa beans.
By the way, happy 60th birthday Lotte.
Let’s talk about Milk Chocolate Ghana Toppo. It’s fairly similar to other Toppo in that there is a pretzel tube and it is filled with a chocolate-esque goo. In this case it’s actual chocolate that fills the pretzel tube. Chocolate from Ghana…which isn’t radically different than chocolate from Mexico or chocolate from Sri Lanka. I suppose to the chocolate connoisseur there is a world of difference in bean taste but Ghana chocolate taste to me like decent semi-sweetish chocolate as you might find pretty much in any above average chocolate. In Toppo form, the chocolate was nicely dense and had a vague molassesy flavor in and among the chocolaty and semi sweet.
The Guinea Pigs enjoyed the crunchity of the pretzel shell and the tasty chocolate filling. There was plenty of Toppo to go around too since my package had a bit of a rough travel. Not one Toppo survived the trip intact so not only was there double or more for tasting, my Pigs could nibble partial pieces here and there if they wanted. The long Toppo in the pic is the stuck together parts of a broken Toppo so you could see how long the Toppo was before it took a rockin boat trip. Still, Toppo pieces are just as tasty as whole Toppo so no harm done. After munching on the Toppo bits, the Pigs and I decided that of the Toppos, the salted caramel still reigned supreme but the Ghana chocolate came in a good secondish. A half pea less than salted caramel kind of secondish.
Rating of 4 wasabi peas out of a possible 5 wasabi peas.
