Sugar Savvy

Here’s the thing, as much as I love trying new products, I often am disappointed by the results. Deciding to choose the new and improved product over the tried and true can lead me to yell into the sky, “what have you done, flawed market researchers?”.

While I ended up buying a few of the same types of chocolate bars for this article, namely Coffee Crisp, Aero and Oh Henry, I’ve chosen to discuss them not by type but by style.

First, yogurt. I like yogurt. When used correctly, as it was in the case of my oft mentioned ‘best chocolate bar ever’ Kit Kat Lemon & Yogurt, it can be quite a delicious addition. Coffee Crisp Yogurt seemed to get it right. Both Michelle and I found it pretty tasty and agreed that the bitter coffee/sour yogurt mix went together well. I’m not a coffee drinker though, so it was fine with me that we cut the bar into pieces to share between us and J. J, a tried and true coffee drinker, loved the bar. He said when the wafer inside dissolved, it was like a burst of sugary goodness.

Aero Vanilla Yogurt on the other hand, got it all wrong. Aero chocolate is pretty sweet on it’s own, so pairing it with yogurt should have been awesome. However, the curd-like yogurt wedged into the bottom of the bar was incredibly sweet as well, making for a sweetness competition in my mouth that felt like a war. Luckily I had water handy. J also found the bar to be yuck and said it had too much vanilla extract flavour. If I hadn’t had been so desperate to get the cloying taste from my mouth, I may have noticed that myself. Perhaps if they’d tried their yogurt mix with dark chocolate or lemon, it would have balanced better.

Both Coffee Crisp and Aero also decided to experiment with caramel, something that would normally have me clamoring for more. But sadly, Coffee Crisp with Caramel was another disappointment. The coffee flavour of the bar was softened a bit by the caramel taste, like a fancy coffee frappe thing. But honestly, I barely noticed a difference between this and a regular Coffee Crisp. As for the Aero Caramel, the less said about that the better. It was gross, plain and simple, and so say all of us.

Also deciding to have a go-round with caramel was Oh Henry and Nestle Crunch. By this time my funny friend Hilary had joined us. Her take on the Oh Henry with Caramel was that she tasted a hint of maple. J said it reminded him of halva, a dense, crumbly sweet he’d eaten in Israel and not liked. I’d also had halva before and didn’t like it either. Michelle said it was like taking a regular Oh Henry and making it a little less gooey. Hilary said it was the chocolate they serve in hell.

The Nestle Crunch with Caramel wasn’t a hit either. J said it was good until he tasted the caramel goo inside, which reminded him of green baby poo. I simply grimaced and reached again for my water, which I nearly spit out laughing as Hilary said the bar tasted like a bag of asses.

The final bar we tried was the Limited Edition Oh Henry Double Chocolate. I love Oh Henry and eat them quite often but due to my dislike of the overuse of chocolate, I hesitated before picking it up. The fudge portion had been chocolatized, the caramel had been chocolatized and that kinda lost me. Thankfully you can’t make nuts any more chocolatey or there wouldn’t have been any kind of taste demarcation line. J quite liked his chunk however, likening it to deity excrement. It was easy for me to hand over my second piece as I liked it not at all, but another piece seemed to change his opinion completely and he said it was too chocolatey and had made him feel a little sick.

Despite all our chocolate that day none of us felt chocolate satisfied. For me, not quenching the desire for the taste I’m expecting, makes me crave that specific taste until I satisfy it. Michelle, J and Hilary all agreed. Instead of reaching for one of these bars again, I think I’ll just pick up a bag of Chocolate Chex Mix. That stuff is delicious.