Koikeya Sour Plum Chips

By now I've more than had my fill of strawberry, and cola.. and chocolate, though you can never had enough of that. Thankfully, the fine folks at TokyoTreat may have seen this coming and threw in a completely different flavor in the form of plum! I'm not the most familiar with plum flavor, but that makes it all the more exciting. I am also curious how these will taste in chip form.

After opening and sniffing the bag, plum is definitely not a conclusion I would arrive at! These look like and smell like normal chips, through and through. And I believe I've had chips from this brand before, and they had a very mild umami flavor. However upon a deeper sniff, I do get a hint of the fruity plum, though it is very subtle.

My first taste of the chip was... very confusing. Sweet and salty and sour flavors all clash with fruity and potato-ey undertones, but after each taste it starts to make a little bit more sense, but every now and then these flavors fall out of alignment once again. And... they never quite make it there. It's like the plum and potato are trying to fuse together into a flavor harmony, but keep falling out of it and delivering caustic blows to my tongue.

When it does work it's ever so slightly pleasant, and it seems to vary from chip to chip. It seems to be at its best when the fruit flavor comes through more, and that's what I initially thought these would be. Pretty much confirms my suspicion that plums and potatoes are not best friends. As for other chip things: the texture is fine, the salt is moderate but a little too much considering it masks the nice plum flavor. Seems like this snack would be great if the flavor balance was adusted, but right now it's not quite there.

Rating: 2 - Awrr