Tirol いちごがいっぱい (Full of Strawberries)

When I first started this blog, I would have said that Kit Kat was the king of limited edition flavors. They do have a wide variety, but Tirol has them beat when it comes to flavor and season turnover. Every time I walk into a combini (which is a little too often) there is a box of random new flavor next to the register, or a seasonal collection displayed by the door, or a bin of an old permanent flavor I’ve never tried. Trying every Tirol flavor may become a new goal of mine, but until Tirol sends us press releases, I think I’ll just stick with the random impulse buys.

The いちごがいっぱい (Full of Strawberries) pack is new, though the flavors may have been released in the past in different forms. There are three types of “chocolate” in this pack; Ichigo & Cookie Crunch (which is the pink version of White & Cookie Crunch), つぶつぶ練乳いちご (grainy condensed milk strawberry), and 濃厚いちごゼリー (concentrated strawberry jelly). All smell fake, floral, and sweet, similar to the Rich Strawberry bar by Meiji. Like other Tirol chocolates these candies are individually wrapped in foil and plastic and are about an inch square. I like the portioning of these flavors (three of each flavor) because I wouldn’t want to eat an entire bar of any of the flavors.

Ichigo & Cookie Crunch is crushed chocolate cookies, similar to Oreos, held together with strawberry flavored white chocolate type stuff. The strawberry flavor is easily overpowered by the chocolate from the cookies, and I don’t think the combo works as well as the White & Cookie Crunch. The color is kind of off-putting too, since the dark brown cookies turn the chocolate a sickly mauve color. 3/5

I’ve had jelly filled Tirol chocolates before, and though the combination sounds a little weird, it works really well. The chocolate is deep pink, and has a convincing strawberry smell and taste. The jelly is bouncy and firm, like other jelly filled flavors, and has a mild flavor. Again, the strawberry seeds detracted from the product and should have been left out. I liked this flavor the most because both the taste and texture were balanced. 4/5

I’m not going to comment on the wrapper for this one, because yeah… not going to go there on a family blog (but I will point it out for some of our readers). つぶつぶ translates to lumpy, grainy, or pebbly and I think it’s included in the flavor name because of the inclusion of strawberry seeds in the cream center. Personally I don’t think that the seeds add anything to the product and would have liked if they had been left out. The exterior chocolate is light pink and has a nice clean strawberry flavor. The interor is the consistancy of fondant and tastes kind of milky, kind of yogurty, and really fake. I did not enjoy these since they were a bit too sweet and the milk flavor is just weird. 1/5