Daiso X Tirol Choco Fukkoku Tirol: Blue Cheese Choco – ダイソーXチロルチョコ 復刻チロル ブルーチーズチョコ

If you’re like me, and have a meaningless obsession with hunting down and trying every kind of Tirol, then you’ll know that it’s virtually impossible, as region-specific limited edition products are constantly being released, meaning that you’d either need to keep visiting every major city in Japan in continuous rotation to check for new items, or else establish a vast network of underlings across the nation to do the job for you. And even then, what about all those chocolates released before I even knew about Tirol, and now no longer available? Well, luckily from time to time an old classic is revived, giving people who missed it the first time around a chance to catch up.

Hundred yen shop giant Daiso collaborated with Tirol Choco to poll consumers and find the top three out-of-production flavours that they wanted brought back. Blue cheese came in at number one, followed by peanut crunch and chocolate tart, and as a result Daiso produced this small 8 piece bag.

The small chunks are a pale creamy colour, dotted with minute green flecks of dried parsley, with a distinctive cheesy scent, that is strong but not overbearing, like a freshly opened packet of Parmesan.

The primary flavour is very odd – there’s no other word for it: it’s cheesy. Not a mellow, matured flavour like cheddar, but an unapologetically bold sour milk flavour, like that of a curd cheese. As the initial tang of cheesiness subsides, salt and a herby hint of parsley quickly make their way to the foreground, followed lastly by the oily uber-sweetness of low-grade white chocolate.

Now this may all sound horrific, and I’ll admit that on my first tasting I wasn’t sure what to make of this bizarre melange of flavours, but by the time I came to the third pale white chocolate square I was hooked. The contrast and progression of tastes is complex but it works; the saltiness counters the fermented dairy notes, and is in turn countered by the sweet chocolate, and thus everything balances out.

Adversely, when it comes to texture Blue Cheese is relatively simple. Each square looks like a solid block of chocolate but the cross-section of a chunk reveals that within the thick outer layer of white chocolate is a center with a crumbly texture, similar to a hard cheese like Parmesan.

While my writing may not have done much to entice you, I seriously recommend trying this unusual product for yourself, before it disappears all over again.

8/10

Daiso X Tirol Choco Fukkoku Tirol Blue Cheese Choco 8 pcs   ￥108  39kcals/piece

Tirol Choco Skyberry – チロルチョコ スカイベリー

I’d never heard of the Skyberry, which according to its website hails from Tochigi – the ‘strawberry kingdom’, before coming across these new Tirols. Initially, looking at the image of a huge strawberry superimposed on Tokyo’s Sky Tree building, I thought ‘Okay Tirol, I see what you did there, Sky Tree, Skyberry…’ but it was only when I came to check the ingredients and found that the dried fruit component of these chocolates includes 12.5% ‘skyberry’ that I realised Tirol weren’t responsible for the pun: skyberries already really existed. They are of course just a variety of strawberry named for the tower, no doubt with a premium price tag, and anyway, the quantity involved here is almost negligible: these are basically dark chocolate and strawberry flavoured candies.

There are four different wrapper designs which depict the transition from sunrise to night, certainly a good gimmick to entice customers into buying four at once.

The smooth surface of the dark chocolate coating is embossed with some kind of motif but I’m not sure whether it’s a letter or a logo or a purely abstract pattern.

A rich chocolatey scent greeted me on unwrapping each piece and the taste was satisfyingly dark without being bitter. The cookie and dried fruit pieces are concentrated at the pink, strawberry-flavoured chocolate base, meaning the candies have a tendency to crumble at the corners, though the blending of colours from mahogany into magenta is pretty.

Flavour-wise the biscuit was a little disappointing. White and Biscuit is my favourite of the standard Tirol range, as the perfectly salted cocoa taste is addictive, but I couldn’t detect any of the same saltiness and bitter cocoa notes in the biscuit here, so it was rather overwhelmed by the very sharp, almost sour flavour of the strawberry. I wonder whether perhaps the acidity of this flavour was enhanced in the hope of concealing the fact that there is very little real fruit contained in these chocolates (they contain strawberry powder and vegetable-based food colouring). The sharpness even drowned out the potential smooth creaminess of the fruity chocolate, which could have compliment the dark chocolate nicely.

Visually both the external packaging and the sweets themselves look great. The dark chocolate was good and I enjoyed the contrast of dense chocolate, crumbly biscuit and powdery, airy freeze-dried fruity pieces, but the ‘skyberry’ element was just too sour for me and I would have liked a little more strawberry sweetness. Nevertheless, I’m tempted to try them again, if only to see whether my impression is different the second time around.

6/10

Tirol Choco Skyberry  ￥20   42kcals

Tirol Choco Daigakuimo – チロルチョコ 大学いも

Taken literally the name of this chocolate, which translates as ‘university potato’, may not conjure up any mouth-watering images, but daigakuimo actually refers to caramelised sweet potatoes, a popular dish in autumn, usually made from a kind of red-skinned sweet potato with golden-yellow flesh. The deep pink colour of the outer chocolate coating is immediately evocative of the vegetable, and it has a lovely scent with strong, warm notes of both caramel and baked potato.

The flavour of the chocolate is certainly reminiscent of sweet potato, but it has been concentrated in order to compete with the rich sweetness of the chocolate, so it is not a natural and subtle flavour like the real thing. However, seeing as this candy is also supposed to taste like caramel it should be sweet and sugary.

Cutting into the chocolate reveals a second, thicker layer of golden-coloured chocolate surrounding a crunchy center which has a very dry and brittle texture like a bread-stick, with large air holes in the middle. The biscuity filling is flecked with tiny fragments of hard, crunchy caramel and black sesame seeds  which work well to recreate the crisp texture and burnt sugar aroma of a caramelised coating. However, the hollow dryness of the biscuit is a disappointing contrast to the smooth creaminess of the outer chocolate, so I would have preferred larger candy fragments and no biscuit.

Overall I liked this a lot, perhaps for the scent more than anything, as it brings to mind images of cold nights around a bonfire and puts you in the mood for autumn~

7/10

Tirol Choco Daigakuimo – 1pc: ￥20

Quick update: Zero calorie tea and jelly, Apollo Matcha, Tirol Choco, Ichigo Milk Yoghurt, Matcha Oreos – ゼロカロリーティー・ゼリー、アポロ抹茶風味、チロルチョコ、いちごみるくクヨーグルト、オレオ抹茶風味

I haven’t had a chance to review anything for aaaaaages – I take the pictures but just don’t have time to write up reviews because of work. Soon it will be the summer holiday and there’ll be time to catch up but for now I’m just going to put up photos with a few notes~

Zero calorie peach and rosehip tea from Daiso (hundred yen shop) and zero calorie white peach jelly.

The tea is perfumey rather than fruity but the taste is pleasant. The jelly is absolutely delicious, it is very smooth – more like a cross between jam and fruit puree than jelly. The milky pink colour is pretty and the peach flavour is perfect. One of the best low-calorie products I’ve ever found.

Meiji Apollo Matcha (limited edition from Kansai)

The milk chocolate is not too sweet and, as you can tell from the rich colour, the matcha chocolate has a strong and earthy green tea flavour. Also the box design is ridiculously cute~

Tirol Choco Milk Daifuku, Raisin Sando, Azuki Parfait and Jersey Soft Cream

Milk Daifuku – a square of chewy mochi on a thin milk chocolate base, topped with a layer of thick sugar syrup and encased in white chocolate. This was pleasant in so much as if you like chocolate you’ll probably be satisfied, but I don’t think it’s anything special. The syrup was simply bland and sugary and it would have been nicer to have more flavours in play.

Jersey Milk Soft Cream – Buttery white chocolate with overtones of vanilla studded with fragments of crunchy biscuit. The biscuit has a similar texture and taste to Lotus biscuits, i.e. an element of dark, burnt sugar and cinnamon. A delicious new addition to the Tirol range and available as large individual pieces or a pack of eight minis.

Raisin Sando – Like the Jersey Milk Soft Cream this has a lovely butteriness and good vanilla flavour, thanks to the addition of ground vanilla beans. The picture highlights the problem that the crucial raisin element of this sweet is somewhat lacking, I’ve eaten this chocolate several times now and only get one or two small chunks of raisin in each candy. However, when you do get the raisin the flavour combination is excellent as the slight sharpness of the dried fruit is the perfect compliment to the rich dairy ingredients.

(I forgot to photograph the Azuki Parfait Tirols but they are wonderful – definitely try them if you can!)

Ichigo Milk Yoghurt

A strawberry dessert based on the popular ‘ichigo miruku’ candies. I found this product slightly confusing because the scent is sugary sweet, like the original candy, whereas the taste is actually quite tart with a subtle yoghurty sourness coming through, which doesn’t seem to match up with the sweetness of the smell. I enjoyed it as a fruity yoghurt but this will disappoint anyone hoping for a dessert that recreates the mild and milky flavour of the ichigo sweets.

Mini Matcha Oreos ~yummy~

 

Tirol Choco: Koinobori, Bisco, Hello Kitty Kyoto Edition and Matcha Mochi – チロルチョコ：こいのぼり、ビスコ、ハローキティ京都限定、抹茶もち

I picked up a lot of new Tirols lately so I thought I’d do a quick review of some them while they’re still in shops, starting with the Koinobori (carp streamer) version released for Childrens’ Day. These strawberry-biscuit chocolates come in a cute packet with a carp design available in pink or blue. The individual pieces are wrapped with motifs of a bow and arrow, traditional kabuto helmet and the kanji for gold/money.

As you can see these candies consist of a sweet milk chocolate base, biscuit center and upper layer of strawberry-flavoured chocolate. Strawberry-biscuit is simply a fusion of the biscuit and strawberry Tirols included in the selection pack that I reviewed earlier, so I won’t go into much detail, except to say that the strawberry taste is sharp and fruity and the smell is equally pleasant, making these a delicious snack that I would welcome at any time of year.

The Koinobori edition comes out every year but a product that I spotted for the first time recently was a collaboration between Tirol and Bisco:

I always see the little red and pink packets of Bisco in the snack aisle of supermarkets but I’ve never been tempted to try them, maybe because the kitschy child puts me off…However, if you make it into a Tirol Choco I’ll try it, and I’m glad I did. Bisco boasts the inclusion of lactic-acid as its selling point and although that may not sound particularly appealing it gives the chocolate a wonderful yoghurty tartness

There is a faintly sour dairy smell, like un-processed yoghurt, and the taste reminds me of the fromage frais I used to eat as a child – creamy but not too sweet. The strawberry one is a pretty baby pink colour and the fruity flavour is good. I’m not sure whether these contain enough milk to have any tangible health benefits, though if this is one way to get more calcium I’d happily eat 100.

When in Kyoto in March I picked up some themed Hello Kitty Tirols neatly packed into the standard-size box and featuring a kimono clad Kitty:

It seems that there is nothing this much-loved character won’t endorse but I have to say that this doesn’t just seem like something rushed out to bring in a few more yen for the Hello Kitty empire, real care has gone into the 10 different detailed and colourful wrapper designs of typical Kyoto sights such as rickshaws, temples and of course kimonos.

The chocolate itself is the standard Milk flavour that you can get hold of all over Japan, but if you collect wrappers like me, you’re a Kitty-chan fan or you just like cute stuff then you’ll want to keep an eye out for these regional boxes – I’ve also found Tokyo and Hokkaido versions.

Finally Matcha Mochi:

The product name is pretty self-explanatory, all I’ll say is that the matcha scent and flavour of the chocolate is good and rich, not too milky, while the mochi center is chewy with no particular taste and less soft and gooey than the real thing.

Despite the rather bland filling the lovely green tea flavour alone keeps me hooked on these and the chewiness is actually pretty satisfying so I do recommend them if you enjoy matcha~

That’s all for now but I have lots more Tirol to review, including Jersey Milk Soft Cream, Azuki Parfait and Milk Daifuku.

Next month: Kyoto Limited-edition Chocolates – 京都・東海・北陸・関西限定チョコレート

I gave up chocolate for Lent (not a religious thing, I just figure I’ll enjoy it even more if I take a break from it once a year) meaning that I can’t review any of the above until after Easter, so this is just a quick message about what’s coming up. I went to Kyoto this week and found Hello Kitty and Koinobori Tirol Choco, Matcha Apollo chocolates, Yatsuhashi KitKats and Houjicha KitKats, and finally in Nagoya airport I spotted Azuki Sando KitKats. I’m dying to try them all but in the meantime I have salt caramel, grape-flavoured chews, mochi, jellies and lots of other things to post so it will be a chocolate-free but still very, very sweet three weeks until Easter^^

 

Tirol Choco Present Box – チロルチョコプレゼントボックス

This box is the same size and shape as other Tirol variety boxes, with the special feature being that it comes with a label on which you can write a message and stick to the inside of the lid. This is presumably a Valentine’s Day product, although it’s not as heavy on the pink as most of the gift chocolates I’ve seen around. The selection of 20 pieces includes Biscuit, Coffee Nougat, Almond, Milk and the slightly rarer Hot Cake.

Hot Cake isn’t a new Tirol but it isn’t always available so it’s a good idea to snap some up if you ever come across them. The flavour is specifically described as ‘hot cake butter & maple’ and this is nicely represented in the structure of the candy, which has biscuit topped with a layer of syrup coated in golden-yellow chocolate with maple syrup flavoured chocolate on the base – like a tiny pancake with butter dripping down the sides and　syrup pooling at the bottom. Delicious. It delivers on scent and taste too, there is a strong maple aroma and the chocolate has buttery and syrupy flavours. The biscuit center is not really reminiscent of a hot cake but it provides a nice crunch.

Tirol Choco Hinamatsuri – チロルチョコ ひなまつり ひな壇に変身！

What with Hinamatsuri approaching of course the canny people at Tirol have made sure to launch their own contribution into the sea of pink, white and green confectionery coming out in time for the festival, and they’ve done it in style with this cute box that transforms into your own hinadan (tiered doll stand).

I’ve never seen this product before but it doesn’t claim to be new so it may have been around for a few years. The box is the standard size for a boxed selection and contains 20 pieces, each featuring a picture of a male or female doll in traditional festival dress. Anyone who has played Project Zero or similar Japanese horror games may have been freaked out by rows of dolls in the past but these charming characters on their pink, cherry blossom patterned stand look harmless enough. The stand requires just a few folds and tears along the dotted lines to assemble so would be great fun for kids.

Hinaarare (pink/red) – Milk chocolate containing puffed, toasted rice. As is always a risk with cripsed-rice products, the cereal had become a little stale and while there was still a toasty flavour to it, it wasn’t as crunchy and light as it could have been.

Ichigo Vanilla (green/purple) – The Neapolitan colour scheme is appealing and the flecks of strawberry in the middle layer look promising but it fails to deliver on flavour. The scent and taste are neither vanilla nor strawberry and the candy is just quite sickly sweet. The pastel pinks will definitely appeal to young girls but as a chocolate it’s nothing special.

Biscuit – This chocolate, which goes on the top shelf, is the same as the biscuit Tirol I reviewed before, except it comes in the larger size that is usually sold individually. Being larger there is a lot more milk chocolate around the outside which is a bit too much for me, but it’s nice to have some different sizes in the pack.

Tirol Choco 27 Piece Variety Pack – チロルチョコ２７個入バラエティパック

This selection bag is always on sale but usually one flavour gets swapped out, to keep things fresh. In the past the mix has included a ‘raisin sando’ and ‘lemon cheesecake’ chocolate but the current addition is the ever-popular coffe jelly. With each chocolate being around just 33kcals you can try one of each flavour and still not consume as many calories as in an average chocolate bar＾＾

Coffee Jelly – The bitter jelly’s rich coffee flavour is complimented and enhanced by the only slightly sweeter dark chocolate around the base, while the thin layer of white chocolate on top offsets the stronger flavours. The jelly’s consistency is soft and smooth, like turkish delight, and not chewy like the centers of mochi-themed Tirols. Turn over before eating in order to get the benefit of the white chocolate.

Strawberry Jelly – The scent is perfumey, not like the watery, earthy-sweet scent of real strawberries, yet immediately evocative of strawberry nonetheless. The center has the same smooth texture as the coffee jelly. The pink chocolate layer is strawberry flavoured and although sweet it has a slightly more delicate flavour than the creamy milk chocolate and sugary strawberry jelly, which helps to balance out the overall sweetness of the candy.

White & Cookie Crunch – This chocolate is very similar to Hersheys Cookies ‘n’ Creme in concept but the thicker block makes for a more satisfying bite. The ratio of cookie to chocolate is high, so that the very rich, sweet white chocolate is easily countered by the generous distribution of slightly salty dark chocolate cookie pieces. Bitten it has a satisfying crunch and crumble. This is my favourite from this selection as it is the perfect combination of flavours and textures which means that one is never enough.

Bis(cuit) – This is probably the most basic of the selection. The chocolate lacks sheen and isn’t as creamy or sweet as the coating of the milk Tirol. The biscuit is like a nice or rich tea biscuit, quite dry and without distinctive flavour, serving primarily as a texture contrast to the chocolate. It is my least favourite of any Tirol selection and yet it is often the most numerous. However, I forgive Tirol because the packaging is so cute I like to see it in the mix.

Milk – This sweet combines three chocolate flavours: the base is plain, the outer coating is milk and the center is white chocolate of the very pale, rich variety like the filling of a Kinder bar, due to the addition of cream. The center is very sweet but it is so smooth that it has melted and blended with the other flavours before it can become cloying. Also it contains cream cheese, which gives it the faintest salty and yoghurty aftertaste that offsets the sweetness perfectly. Definitely better to let it melt in the mouth than bite.

Coffee Nougat – This is (as far as I know) the original Tirol flavour and one that is always available as a single, larger square in conbinis and supermarkets. The coffee flavour doesn’t have the bitterness of the coffee jelly but does come through, although it takes a back seat to the sweet milk chocolate and is more like instant coffee. The nougat is nicely chewy and has a good mouthfeel. Altogether this is a delicious chocolate but it won’t provide the hit that a coffee-lover seeks.

Almond – For a small, cheap sweet this has a surprisingly complex combination of flavours and textures. The chocolate is sweet milk but the almond inside is caramelised meaning that when you bite into the chocolate it releases a toasty smell of roasted nut which combines with the salty caramel taste and just perceptible crunch of the burnt sugar coating to make for a highly satisfying mouthful.

Bonus: Shingeki no Kyojin ｘ Tirol  – 進撃の巨人✕チロルチョコ

I will update this rubbish photo soon…

Saw these in Lawsons the other day and picked up a couple of cases (to be honest I didn’t intend to, I just wanted the chocolates so I could put the wrappers in my collection but it’s all part of the deal and the tins are pretty nice) There are 10 different cases and 30 different chocolate designs featuring Eren, Mikasa, Armin et al (some characters appear on more than one design). The chocolates come in three of the existing flavours: Milk, Coffee Nougat and Biscuit. For around 450円 you can choose a tin and any 12 chocolates. I managed to pick up 17 different ones but I’ll have to go back for the other 13 and feel like a massive nerd sifting through them all to get the right ones – yay!