04.15.06
Koeda Chocolate (orange)
When I first looked at this snack food, which comes straight from the motherland courtesy of Randal of the 2Ls and Co. as part of the big box of Japanese Snacks, I was rather worried about the total lack of English on the package. Well, other than “Morinaga” and “www.morinaga.co.jp” but that’d be a lot like picking up an American snack thing and finding “Nabisco” on the package. Yeah. Do you know how many things Nabisco makes? I’m not sure if Morinaga is the Nabisco of Japan but I have seen their name from time to time so they aren’t a stranger to the review.
Buuuut, no product identifiable English name on a JSFR means that I either have to wait until we hook up with Rob or snap a pic and send it to Randal of the 2Ls and ask what it’s called. This is me still not reading Japanese. Anyway, the long and short of the dilemma is that anything in all Japanese gets put on the wait list ‘to be reviewed after I find out what it’s called’ so there these sat…waiting. And waiting. And waiting until one night (and under the influence of a particular mean munchie attack) when I decided that I was in need of something exactly like…whatever those stick things were. So, I opened them up.
Lo! Look what I found on the inside packages! A name! Huzzah! Which leads me to the moral of my story: Always give in to your munchie attacks because you never know when they will supply a vital missing piece of information. Remember that kiddies.
Now that I had a name, I could do a review so let’s get to it shall we? First of all, I want to call your attention to the quasi individual packaging aspect of Koeda Chocolates. How cute! Two little stick things per sleeve and maybe 10 sleeves per box, give or take. I don’t know exactly, we kept grabbing sleeves and liberating stick twins. Amusement points for cute packaging though.
Once you get past the packaging and actually open the Koeda (?) there is a nice mandarin orange smell that seeps out of the sleeve. It’s not an intense ORANGE but rather a nice mild citrus-y orange smell with just a hint of sharpness. That’s good; there seems to be some sort of orange pudding thing-it on the package and I like my JSF to adhere to their packaging promises.
The sticks themselves rather surprised me because there is no Pocky graham crackeresque stickness to be found anywhere in, on or near Koeda. I was expecting a stick in the middle of the goo but all I got was a length of white chocolateish stuff with a good dosing of mandarin and some rice crispy crisps thrown in to break things up. Sort of a White chocolate Nestles meets orange thing going on, save there are fewer crunchies in the Koeda than there would be in a Nestle’s crunch bar. It’s not bad.
Personally, I found the orange flavor to smack a little too much of chemical origins and would have docked pea points for it but my Guinea pigs were A-OK with the experience. Your mileage may vary. The crispities were a nice touch and added a depth to the Koeda other than “chocolate” and “orange”. Quite frankly, without the crispy bits, Koeda would be rather bland so huzza and pea points for crispities. I think everyone rather liked them, but no one went out and immediately formed a Koeda Chocolate cult so I’m going to give them a
Rating of 4 Wasabi Peas out of a possible 5.
hiyoko said,
January 28, 2009 at 9:52 pm
It’s a mango flavored chocolate — though I can see how the color might throw you.
Boo said,
January 29, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Mango??!? Do mangos taste like oranges? I remember these fellas being pretty orangy, but I’m not really familiar with the flavor of mango so maybe my mouth said orange! when I was trying to identify the flavor. I’m going to have to ask one of the Guinea Pigs about mangos and oranges. MANGO! It’s not looking like a word anymore. 🙂
Kate said,
June 3, 2010 at 8:12 am
Maybe it’s a really tart mango? The Japanese lettering on the package definitely says “mango”. It could also be that it was mislabeled. 🙂