Because I needed to do a brief test run with the lovely digital recorder that Scott lent me (because of the fear I had that I would get someone to do an hour-long interview and then find I out I'd used the recorder improperly and wasted everyone's time), I decide to alter the usual Rose-coloured Review format. Below is an actual real-time transcription of a conversation between novelist Mark Sampson and myself as we each consumed half of the Twix Java. Of course, for totally honesty, please note that the conversation was intentionally geared towards a critical review. I can't speak for Mark, but left to my own devices, a transcription of my comments while eating a chocolate bar would consist of "Hooray for chocolate!" and then the silence of concentrated devouring.
RR: We are now going to sample a Twix Java.
(extremely long period of wrapper crinkle noises, followed by chewing)
MS: It's definitely a different Twix experience. The cookie on the inside is not your standard Twix cookie.
RR: It's a chocolate cookie!!
MS: It's a chocolate cookie. And the caramel, the fudgey caramels stuff on top is quite nice.
RR: I think that's where the coffee is.
MS: Yes, you can definitely taste the coffee in the caramel. But yeah, it's three layers of chocolate, as opposed to chocolate, caramel, and then some sort of bland cookie.
RR: I think it was a shortbread before. I haven't had a real Twix in a long time, which is a problem here. I don't really have a point of comparison.
(reflective chewing sounds)
RR: Mine's a little melted. Is yours melted?
MS: It is.
RR: I think that's not the candy bar's fault, I think it's that it was in my bag.
MS: Plus it's about 22 degrees here [note: circumstances of consumption were sitting beside the music garden on Toronto waterfront on a sunny day. Candy enjoyment might, I suppose, vary under circumstances less idyllic]
MS [reading package]: This is a limited edition chocolate bar.
RR: Yes, so this review might actually be useless because now no one can get it. [Further research indicates this to be true {Twix Java does not appear on the Twix website)}. Sigh, another extremely useful review of something no one can get, courtesy of Rose-coloured. Sorry, guys.]
MS [laughing] It's a collector's item that you can eat! [more chewing] Definitely good. How did you come to acquire this?
RR: P. bought it at a store called Almost Perfect. Where they sell seconds of food items.
MS: Well, I would say this is a world-class chocolate bar. The closest thing that I could compare this to is a Turtle...those Turtle chocolates?
RR: But they have nuts in them, right?
MS: Yeah. But the caramel in this is similar to the caramel in a Turtle.
RR: It's honestly not very coffee-ish. I mean, if no one had told me this was Java Twix, I might not necessarily have picked up on it. It does taste a little like coffee but...but not all that much.
MS: [reading label] It says "coffee caramel and chocolate cookie"... I would give this a solid A minus as a chocolate bar.
[digression to discuss Big Turk, Oh Henry, etc.]
MS: Some chocolate bars you eat and it's not as substantial. This is about medium.
RR: You only got half of itf.... I'm gonna agree with you, A minus...or maybe even an A, because this is lacking all the things I do not like in a chocolate bar, namely nuts.
MS: Yup, no nuts.
RR: There's nothing inherently wrong with nuts but candy's supposed to be candy... I think I'm touchy about nuts, I don't want them *in* things. If I'm gonna eat a nut I'm gonna eat a nut.
***
I'm gonna show my scars
RR
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3 comments:
I am not sold on this Twix Java thing. Why mess with a good thing? (see, for example, the corruption of the KitKat bar perpetrated by Nestle Japan: http://becauseitsjapan.blogspot.com/2008/02/gimmie-break-break-me-off-piece-of-that.html ) I am very sold on the Almost Perfect store!! Hopefully, they will expand to Eastern Ontario.
Hello, Rebecca!
This comment is not Twix-related (though I do love the original -- why complicate things?). Rather, it is email-related. I just sent a message to your UTOR account, but I'm not sure if you still check it...
If no, can you write me back with your current address? I'm at: laura.boudreau@gmail.com
Thanks,
LB
i want an Almost Perfect store too! i am kind of afraid of buying second hand food, but if it's good enough for RR and MS it is surely good enough for me.
plus, limited edition food seems really decadent, yet in an accessible way.
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