I’ve been looking at Crunky for a few years now. It’s not the name that threw me, it just didn’t seem that appealing. Why buy a Japanese or Korean cheap chocolate bar when we have plenty of them here in the States. But I knew I had to give it a try eventually.

Lotte is a huge company, based in both South Korea and Japan, so there are lots of places where you may see these bars in Asia.

Crunky Chocolate - Salted Caramel - the description on JBox said that this was a salted caramel bar. I was expecting, as the picture seems to have, some chocolate and some caramel. Instead it’s some sort of a white chocolate bar with a salty and caramelized flavor. It also has the malted crunchies.

The wrapper isn’t in English so I’m at a loss to read the rest of the description, but as far as I’m concerned, this is not chocolate. It doesn’t taste like chocolate, it doesn’t look like chocolate. It might be shaped like chocolate, but it’s not. Perhaps it’s off-white chocolate.

My feelings of betrayal aside ... it’s nice, and I actually grew rather fond of the not-so-sweet taste. The slightly burnt flavor was also nice as were the crunchies with their malty hit. But the texture of the chocolate itself wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t creamy, it didn’t melt in my mouth. It got soft, it was rather smooth, but it felt more fudgy than chocolatey.

Crunky Chocolate - my feelings for the first bar I tried were set aside for this experience. It looks rather traditional, like a Krackle or Nestle Crunch bar, but the chocolate is definitely lighter. It’s certainly well packaged. The easy to open

box reveals a large flat bar (well, mine got a little bent in transit from Japan) wrapped in a light matte foil.

The chocolate is a little waxy, but very smooth. The flavor is more milky and perhaps a little burnt tasting as several people have mentioned to me. The quality is no better than Hershey’s or Nestle’s standard consumer fare, but perhaps a bit different. I liked the format of the bar, I’ve always found Crunch bars a little too flat, I want the crispies to be really surrounded (I rather prefer the Easter egg versions).

Neither of these set my world on fire. Every country has to have a crispy chocolate bar. I like the name, it has a good onomatopoeiaic sense to it. If I were in Japan or South Korea I would probably pick these up as a “safe” choice, but I don’t know if I’d mail order them again. (But they could probably sucker me with some limited edition variety ... because I’m a sucker like that.)

It must be pomegranate day here on Candy Blog!

These Lotte chews were given to me by a co-worker of my husband’s who just returned from South Korea. She brought me lots of goodies (some which I’ll get to in the coming weeks). These were fascinating because they were pomegranate but also because they appear to be knock-offs of Morinaga’s HiCHEW (or maybe progenitors ... I’m not sure of the history of these things).

The package is partially in English on one side and in Korean on the other. There’s 2% of something in here, according to the English side ... I’m going to guess 2% real fruit juice.

The chews differ from HiCHEW in a couple of ways. First, the little rods are square, not rectangular.

Second, they’re colored on the outside and white on the inside. HiCHEWS are colored on the inside and white on the outside.

There was no way to do a complete head to head since these were pomegranate flavored. The chews were a pleasant pink color. Soft and though chewy and yielding, not quite as latexy as the HiCHEW.

They were tangy and fragrant and reminded me of raspberry more than pomegranate. Pomegranates are naturally a rather dry flavor, but share a lot of similarities with raspberry. I still think I prefer the Citrus HiCHEW, but I’ll keep my eyes open for other varieties of Chew-Lets at the Korean/Japanese grocers.

I’m a little sick, just bronchitis, nothing to block my enjoyment of candy but I’m a little tired. I’m spending more time on the computer and just read an interesting article about some of the benefits of gum to help build memory or as a delivery method for supplements. (Link to LATimes.)

So I thought I’d profile a few gums today, just in short because, well, it’s just gum.

I picked this Cool Cola Hubba Bubba up at Munchies here in Los Angeles. I rather enjoy cola flavor, though I rarely drink soda. This gum is from Israel and I can’t tell you what the label says beyond the flavor.

The chew is soft like Hubba Bubba but has a really good rounded cola flavor, complete with a tangy lemon element and the spicy cola notes. The flavor doesn’t last very long, but as it peters out it does taste a bit like old cinnamon gum, which isn’t unpleasant at all. The bubble blowing is pretty good too. I can’t say that the color is as appealing as regular pink bubble gum, but the size of the bubbles can be impressive. While I wasn’t a huge fan of this, I really think it should be marketed in the US, it fills a gaping hole in the flavor range of our bubble gums.

(A little housekeeping note, I like to put on some lip balm before blowing bubbles to keep the gum from sticking to my lips.)

Rating: 6 out of 10

I bought this gum in a Family Guy tin with Stewie on the front last summer at Powell’s Sweet Shoppe. It mostly bought it for the tin and this one was the least offensive of the Family Guy sayings there. (Not that I don’t like Family Guy, but this is a family-friendly blog.)

The little gum pieces are as cute as can be, light orange and shiny. The flavor says it’s orange, but I’d call it a juicyfruit plus orange. It’s not very strong gum and not really that good. It sticks to my teeth (I have fillings) and doesn’t last very long. But I liked the tin and will find something to stuff in there at some point when I bring myself to finish the gum that’s probably all tacky and stuck to the bottom now.

Rating: 4 out of 10

Talk about your unimaginative names. Cafe Coffee Gum! Whee!

I picked this up because I was actually curious about the new Wrigley Kona Coffee gum, but I’m not gonna buy that, because it’s got artificial sweeteners in it. So when I saw this, and that it had sugar, I figured it was destiny. And though I make fun of the name, the package design was rather pleasing.

It’s not strongly flavored, but rather nice and mildly sweet coffee-flavored. The flavor doesn’t last very long and when it peters out along with the sugar it’s rather musty tasting. But swapping for another piece solves that problem. I can go through a pack of gum in a matter of an hour that way.

Rating: 4 out of 10

Before CandyBlog came into my life, I was completely unaware of the wonders of flaked and aerated chocolate. How can this be? I’m the kid who seemed to have as much fun blowing bubbles into my chocolate milk as I did drinking it.

It seems that the UK does not have the corner on the market when it comes to bubbly chocolates, I’ve now discovered these from Israel and Japan:

Elite Aerated Bittersweet Chocolate: This is the first semi-sweet bar I’ve tried that’s bubbly. I’m not even sure if Nestle or Cadbury make one anymore. This bar is large, about the size of a 100 gram one, but weighs only 85 grams. The pieces are oddly light in the hand and melt quickly on the tongue. The bubbles are very consistent and I think a little smaller overall than the ones in the Aero bars. Very sweet at first and with a nice sweet smell but perhaps a little too much fake vanilla to it. It’s very buttery on the tongue, though with a little grain towards the end but a nice crisp finish. This bar is 48% cocoa solids.

Lotte Airs: This isn’t a bar at all. Inside the box, after opening the plastic pouch you’ll find a tray with little pieces. (12 in all.) Kind of like the Dars I tried before. The Airs bar is milk chocolate but what’s really different about it is that there’s also hazelnut paste in there. It gives the bar a wonderful nutty aroma that mixes well with the dairy milk taste that might make it a little too sticky otherwise. The bubbles in them are very small, which gives it less of an airy feeling on the tongue, but it still has a good cool sensation. I love that it’s in pieces, which makes it easy to share. Also, the other aerated bars tend to be a little messy when you break off a piece. Lotte is so clever.

See these other reviews: Nestle Aero, Nestle Mint Aero and Cadbury Dairy Milk Bubbly.

You may recall a while back I got an order from Japan of candies. The last thing I wanted to share with you that came in that box are the two gums from Lotte.

Name: No Time Gum
Brand: Lotte
Place Purchased: Jbox
Price: $1.50
Type: Gum

The first is No Time, which is a little gray, dusty cube of gum. It’s got a light mint flavor and is advertised as a replacement for brushing your teeth when you have no time. Handy, eh?

There are quite a few “whitening” gums on the market in the States, most have baking soda in them, so they end up tasting rather salty and soapy. No Time does not have that burning mint flavor that some freshing gums have and though it says it has some sort of scrubbers in it, it’s quite smooth. The chew is a little tough, the flavor slightly medicinal. I’m not a big gum chewer, and though I found this pleasant, it’s not something I would seek.

Name: Black Black
Brand: Lotte
Place Purchased: Jbox
Price: $1.40
Type: Gum

Many Americans are familiar with Black Black - especially if you frequent truck stops or college campuses. Black Black may be the original caffienated gum. “Hi Technical - Excellent Taste and Flavor.”

They come in the traditional foil wrapped stick. The color is not black, but rather dark. It looks like it should taste like licorice, like a large chewable sen sen. But, it’s actually flavored quite differently. It tastes like cough drops. Hall’s Menthol cough drops. I don’t know if that helps with the caffiene delivery or not.

Though the taste isn’t necessarily enticing, the charge is definitely there. I couldn’t find any info on how much caffiene is in a stick, but I can tell you from experience that I had a terrible headache about two weeks ago. I tried aspirin, then ibuprofen and finally chewed a stick of black black ... whew, sweet relief. Of course I had trouble sleeping later that night (next time, I’ll try the black black first!).

It’s a good thing to keep in your arsenal. Much better than drinking caffienated drinks when driving, if you ask me, because you don’t need as many bathroom breaks.

Ratings - No Time - 5 out of 10
Black Black - 7 out of 10