World of Snacks was created to explore cultures through food. As a child traveling throughout Europe and North American I personally encountered unique treats (and experiences) that I now want to share with my family. In addition to the snacks I previously discovered, our company now seeks out all of the best cookies, cakes, chocolates, chips, gums, and all types of snack foods from around the world. Since we began our exploration of snacks just over a year ago no country has intrigued us more than Japan, and no other snack items has us more excited than Japanese Kit Kats. Our international snack blog has reviewed some very delicious Kit Kats out of Japan with my personal favorites being the Blueberry Cheesecake Kit Kat and the Vanilla Ice Cream Kit Kat. Today the snack under review is the Hazelnut Kit Kat, not to be confused with British Hazelnut Cream Kit Kat. Let’s take a closer look. The Japanese Hazelnut Kit Kat Comes in a brownish red package with a gold trim. The images hosted on the wrapper are a wireframe globe, some melted and milky chocolate, and two small hazelnuts. The classic Nestle Kit Kat logo is in the center. For our American followers, Nestle produced the Kit Kat to the rest of the world; we are the only country to have a Hershey Kit Kat. Of course the wrapper also has some Japanese Charters and the world Hazelnut across the bottom. Now on to the taste test of the Hazelnut Kit Kat from Japan! Our sample group today consisted of 6 adults, one female and five males all aged between 25-35. Unanimously all testers truly enjoyed this snack. So what does it taste like? Well, simply put it tastes like an improved version on the classic Kit Kat. The hazelnut is very subtle, almost hard to distinguish, but that is OK. It compliments the snack nicely and gives the Kit Kat a rich and creamy presentation. None of the tasters were particularly fond of hazelnut flavoring but all loved the Hazelnut Kit Kat from Japan and asked for more! Will World of Snacks offer the Japanese Hazelnut Kit Kat in our international snack store? For sure! We are excited to offer all the foreign flavors of Kit Kats we can get our hands on. Later this year we will expand our offerings to include snacks from Japan. Each month this year we will add a new country to our store. Being we are still in the first month, we currently only have British Snacks for sale online. Follow along as we grow and leave your details to the right to stay updated on our progress. Keep on snacking world!
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World of Snacks was created so our family and friends could explore the world through it’s sweet and salty treats. Over the last year we have spent time analyzing snacks from 30 different countries. At the first of this year we opened our international snack store to the world. We now offer the best British Snacks for sale in the United States with shipping around the world. Each month following we will add a new country and their snacks to our inventory. The focus of our international snack blog is to find inventory for our store. Today, we are back in Ireland reviewing some gourmet chocolates that we are very excited to be sampling. These special Irish chocolates that we are examining are produced by Lily O’Brien. The company was initially founded in 1992 in the O’Brien’s kitchen with only a wooden spoon and a passion for chocolate. Today the company is one of Ireland’s most recognized global brands and has export sales that make up 75% of their volume. Although they are famous at home, Lily O’Brien also sells products throughout the UK, USA, Australia, Sweden and more. Although to be honest, here in the USA this is our first experience of this Irish Snack. Although they offer a variety of chocolaty options we are examining the Lily O’Brien’s Gourmet Irish Chocolate Gifts. They have a range of keepsake, personalized, and wedding gifts. Our sample is a massive Christmas Keepsake gift package. It comes with their whole lineup of chocolates in a variety of individually wrapped gift packages. The idea is to buy the keepsake box, open it up, give out gifts of gourmet Irish chocolate to everyone your have ever met, and keep the massive container for yourself. Well, that is our take on it. Although the box offers a wide size of gift options, we dove into the biggest and divided it up for our review panel. Our box contained three trays of 30 chocolates, for those who don’t feel like doing math, that’s 90 chocolates! In this massive sub-box of our giant larger keepsake gift box there were 10 different flavors of the Irish chocolate. To prevent the need to create our first international snack novel, we are going to examine each with just a very quick summary. So for your snack research pleasure, here is our nearly tweet friendly review of Lily O’Brien’s Gourmet Irish Chocolate Gifts. First up was the Double Chocolate Truffle. Filled with a velvet smooth 55% dark chocolate and encased in a hard shell 68% dark chocolate this dark on dark combination created a well blended creamy treat that for some reason has a hint of orange. Simply Chocolate was just as the name implies. This Irish snack was a blend of both white and dark chocolate and was a firm and a little hard. Very enjoyable, but the most solid version offered by Lily O’Brien. Le Crunch Chocolat tastes a lot like an American crunch bar that has been re-engineered into a gourmet Irish chocolate. The crunch comes from a French biscuit. Not the USA version of a biscuit though, the cookie kind. My personal favorite was the Lemon Meringue Pie. WOW! This tastes like a fresh lemon meringue pie coated in outrageously delicious Irish milk chocolate. Praline Perfection offered a perfectly presented white chocolate cup outer shell with a praline and smooth chocolate center. The nut was a little small, but the treat had big flavor. Caramel Mocchiato caught us off guard. Generally coffee and chocolate candy can come off a little weak. The coffee in Lily O’Brien’s chocolate was perfect, with a nearly fresh ground taste. In addition to being snack lovers, we are very serious coffee and consumers and to be wowed by a snack version is rare. We are not new to orange chocolate; in fact this is our third review featuring this combination. However, out of the three this snack, the Zesty Orange Chocolate was our least favorite rendition. The orange was a strange firm jelly and there were rind pieces on top? Not our favorite Irish gourmet chocolate for sure. Hazelnut O’Brien was our female tasters favorite, minus the nut. I personally enjoyed the nut, so I ate hers too! The mouse like filling is divine and the white chocolate layer on top rounds this snack out well. Their classic Sticky Toffee gave me an instant sugar rush, in fact we are 30 minutes post review and I am still high on sugar. The toffee is the best I have ever tasted. Our female taster was not a fan but all other truly enjoyed this chocolate snack. Last but not least, Death by Chocolate. This one left us wanting more. The bold name oversold the item. Or maybe it was because we just consumed 9 other delicious treats. The taste took awhile to come together and it was enjoyable but lacked wow factor. There you have it. This is our longest snack review to date! Will World of Snacks offer Lily O’Brien’s Gourmet Irish Chocolate Gifts for sale online? Not at the moment. They have a decent export set up and offer the sale of their snacks right on their website. We may be interested in gift items in the future and if we extend our international snack store to include items like this we will revisit with this Irish snack brand. Hungry for snacks? Head over and buy British Chocolates online now or leave your details to the right to be notified as we expand our inventory. Earlier this year we official launched our international snacks store and we now sell a variety of British Snacks Online. Yesterday we expanded our inventory of snacks from England to include a selection of British Biscuits with half of the selection being produced by Cadbury. Why does World of Snacks only have British Snacks for sale? Well each month this year we are expanding our snacks store to include the best cookies, cakes, chips, chocolate, and sweets from a different country. Next month we will begin selling and shipping American Snacks all around the world. Until then, let’s look at our selection of Cadbury Chocolate Biscuits and compare them. Unless you are from England or elsewhere in the United Kingdom deciding which Cadbury Biscuit (or cookie) is best for your tea time or snack craving, can be just a tad confusing. All three of our offerings of Cadbury Biscuits from England look very similar. The all come in a 300-gram tube that is mostly Cadbury purple, feature a large Cadbury logo, and pair images of the biscuit. On all the packages you can see a picture of the cookie contained within. One side is clearly silkily Cadbury chocolate, the other a slightly different looking biscuit. So now that we know what these British Biscuits look like, let’s being our review and see how they taste. Cadbury Oat and Choc Chip Biscuits We will start with our favorite, which was a surprise to all testers involved. There are very little oat cookies in the US. There are American Oatmeal Cookies, but they taste completely different. Our group of testers all encountered an oat biscuit for the first time on this taste test, and no one was really excited to be eating a biscuit made of oats, chocolate yes, oats not so much. Cadbury Oat and Choc Chip Biscuits are extraordinary! They are lightweight, and you feel like it’s OK to be eating them. You get a powerful crunch, and just enough chocolate chips and chocolate to make them truly a treat. The oats seem to be filled with air, which dunking in milk or tea would be ideal. Every one of our testers rated this their favorite Cadbury Biscuit. Cadbury Shortcake Biscuits Surprisingly enough our rankings actually match the order they were presented. Maybe the Oat and Chocolate Chip cookie set the bar to high? The Cadbury Shortcake Biscuits are delicious as well. They are teatime shortcake biscuits with one layer covered again in Cadbury chocolate. These British Biscuits were sweeter then both of the others and seemed more dessert like. Cadbury Digestive Cookies Out of the three, the Cadbury Digestive Cookies are the only I personally recall having as a child living in England. These are the workhorse of the three and remind me of what a typical British Cookie should taste like. They are denser than the Oat and Choc Chip as well as the Shortcake. They are sweeter than the oat biscuits but not as sweet as the shortcake. Overall they seem middle of the row, and nearly all our testers agreed, this was their least favorite, but still a tasty and enjoyable snack.
Last month our entire international snack blog was dedicated to British Snacks. At the first of this month we launched are long awaited online snack store. Our inventory currently consists of all British Snacks but each month this year we will expand our inventory to include a new country and their best sweets and treats. Now that our store is open for business our blog will get back to touring the world in search of the very best snacks anywhere. Well today, we are back in England again and for a good reason. Our snack under review today is very unique and produced by a company with a fun name, Oloves. Oloves was founded in March of 2007 in West Sussex, England. Company founders lived in Spain for a stint and while there decided to sell pitted olives on the beach. They came up with their snack concept and decided to head home and take their business to the next level. The result, award winning, gluten-free, low calorie, healthy treats. Today they boast they are not a global company, however their product is in 14 different countries and their branding is by far some of the best we have seen in the snack industry. Let’s take a look at a few of the flavors offered by Oloves. If you haven’t put it together yet, Oloves are olives. Not a typical snack you’d find in the US. I personally have spent time traveling aboard and living in England, and last I checked over there olives are not at typical snack item. That being said, we love items that are not typical! Our snack pack arrived from the UK and the first thing we noticed was the packaging. They arrived in matte finished small pouches with some bold styling and some 3D imagery of an olive in the center. The package is very high-end and quickly got us excited about the snack. In addition, the Oloves website is truly stunning. Even before we tried this snack we had an idea that we would like them. Our sampling includes Oloves Hot Chili Mama, Tasty Mediterranean, and Lemony Lover. Let see how they taste!
Our second sampling was the Oloves Lemony Lover. The first thing I personally noted was that the lemon flavor was not overpowering, something that is too common in lemon based snack items. Three out of the four testers truly enjoyed this version although all testers said this version was their least favorite of the group. The last flavor of Oloves that we sampled was the Hot Chili Mamma. This is the one that most excited me personally. Pitted green olives with Habanero chilies sounds like a match made in heaven! Although it wasn’t until this particular test that I realized I like green olives to being with. I’ve always been a Kalamalata olive type of guy. This version of the Oloves was the most loved by the entire panel. The spice was mild but added enough zest to it to really round out this British snack. A side note about all three flavors, their epic website does not list them and being they came directly from the Oloves company we think they may be a test product for a future release. Will World of Snacks offer the Oloves for sale online in our British Snack Store? We are not sure yet. We really do enjoy this snack but we feel for traditional snackers it may be a better fit as a bar condiment (these would be unreal in a martini). That being said when we do intended to extend our inventory passed traditional snacks from England. When we do, these unique and healthy treats will be on the top of the list. Next month we are launching our American Snacks segment of our international snack store and will ship our snacks to England and the rest of the world. To stay up-to-date with our progress and to receive special offers leave your details to the right. Keep on snacking world! Today is the 1st of January and our international snack store is officially open for business! Over the last year we have traveled the world in search of the best candy, chocolates, cookies, crisps, cakes, and gummies. Our goal was literally to locate the best snacks in the world and offer them for sale online with international shipping. We launched our store with British Snacks and every month in 2014 we will add a new country and their snacks to our inventory. Even though our store is open, we will continue writing articles on our ongoing search for additional inventory. We opened today with 33 British Snacks for sale in the US and we have an additional round of snacks from England set to arrive by the middle of this month. One of the snacks that will be included in our inventory expansion is the Yorkie Biscuits by Nestle. In fact, most of the additional snacks to be added will be biscuits, so if you can’t find what you are looking for in our British Snack shop, don’t worry! To be honest, we never heard of the Yorkie Biscuits until we did a review for the Nestle Yorkie Chocolate Bar. After falling in love with the bar, we knew we had to get our hands on the biscuits version of this snack. Let’s take a closer look. Our British Snack under review comes in a dark blue wrapper that is nearly identical to the Yorkie Chocolate Bar. The logo placement and text is the exact same, the only real difference is the word “Biscuit” runs along the bottom of the package. Upon opening the wrapper I personally became a little worried, it too looked exactly like the Yorkie Bar, it even comes in the same trademark segments. What are we getting into? We had see what the Yorkie Biscuits taste like to determine.
Will World of Snacks offer the Yorkie Biscuits by Nestle for sale in our international snack store? Yes! These and other biscuits will be added to our selection of Snacks from England. Head over now and get your hands on some of other recently reviewed items or leave your details to the right and we will let you know once the British biscuits arrive. 1/05/2014 UPDATE: Nestle Yorkie Biscuits are now available for purchase online in our international snack store. We are just over 1 day away from the official launch of our international snack store. Over the past year we have been exploring snacks from countries all around the world in search of inventory for our online store. Starting January 1st we will begin selling these discovered snacks. The first country we will feature is England and each month following we will expand our store to include another country and their best cookies, cakes, chocolates, chips, and sweets. Leading up to the grand opening of our store we have been reviewing a different British Snack every day this month. Today, for the first time ever, we are reviewing a drink!
Our sample of Cadbury Original Drinking Chocolate comes in a Cadbury purple cardboard container with a plastic top. It’s weighing in at 250 grams and simply reads, “Cadbury Original Drinking Chocolate.” There is also as small crest above that mentions this snack being approved by appointment of the Queen. Now that’s an endorsement! Well now that we know how this snack looks, lets see how Cadbury Original Drinking Chocolate tastes. Well by itself, this snack is not that appetizing, it’s rather powdery (this is a joke). Luckily, the instructions state to add the dirking chocolate to hot milk and that’s what we did. We had three testers tonight and 2 immediately fell in love with Cadbury Original Drinking Chocolate. Myself, I truly enjoyed it but for once I preferred the American Alternative, Hershey’s. That being said, with an extra scoop of Cadbury it came closer to my preference. We are launching our British Snack Shop with over 30 items including crisps, chocolates, sweets, and cakes. Mid-January we will expand our selection to include biscuits! Are you on our email list? If not fill out your details to the right. Our subscribers will receive a free chocolate bar with their first purchase. In just 2 days our international snack store officially opens for business. Starting January 1st you will be able to buy British Snacks in the US and have them shipped anywhere in the world. Each and every month in 2014 we will expand our online snack store and add a new country and their best chocolates, sweets, cakes, chips, and gummies to our inventory. All month long leading up to the launch of our store we have been reviewing one of the many British Snacks a day that will be offered in our store. Today we are continuing our tour through Britain with a review of the Orange Aero Chocolate Bar. This is not our first review of an Aero Bar, in fact just 2 weeks ago we did a review of the Nestle Aero Mint Chocolate Bar. This is also not our first encounter of orange chocolate from England. Back in October we did a review of Terry’s Chocolate Orange. So how does the Orange Aero Chocolate Bar compare? Like the Aero Mint Bar this sweet treat is a chocolate shell encasing an aerated chocolate center. The chocolate is just right, not waxy at all. The aerated center is orange in color and flavor. Also like the mint version, the flavor is subtle but very pleasant, and almost fun to eat. We actually prefer this version of orange chocolate to the well-recognized chocolate orange leader, Terry’s Chocolate Orange. Terry’s is sweeter and richer, which may be why so many people love it. The Orange Aero Chocolate Bar feels more sophisticated and that may be our testers prefer it. The Orange Aero Chocolate Bar is one of many British candy bars that you will be able to buy in the very near future. We will also stock the classic and mint chocolate offered by Aero. If you are looking to buy British Snacks Online, be sure to leave your details to the right. Once the store launches we are offering our subscribers a free Curly Wurly with their first purchase. Also we are a small family business, so help us get the word out that our store is nearly opened. Keep on snacking world! 01/01/2014 UPDATE: The Nestle Orange Aero is now available to purchase online in our international store. Are you ready for the launch of our international snack store? We know we are! For the last year we have explored 27 different countries and their best cookies, cakes, chocolates, sweets, mints, and chips. Our goal was to discover the best snacks in the world and offer them for sale online with shipping across the globe. Starting January 1st we will feature one country a month and offer their snacks for sale. Each month we will restock the previous countries as well. The first country we will feature is England. Leading up to the launch of our British Snack store we have reviewed a different snack ever day this month. With only 3 days left we are continuing out count down and reviewing Mega Monster Munch Flamin Hot Crisps. Mega Monster Munch is one of the snacks I personally enjoyed as a child living in England. Although I enjoyed Monster Munch I have been exploring their entire flavor selection to determine which I personally like the best. I also have utilized a variety of taste testers to provide feedback and help me with my exploration. In out last review we looked at Mega Monster Munch Roast Beef Crisps. Let’s see how the Flamin Hot version compares. Mega Monster Munch Flamin Hot Crisps come in a red bag and feature a blue monster, who appears to be a little sillier than the others. Just like the other two flavors this monster is eating a foot print shaped crisp that is clearly visible in his/her mouth. In the top left corner, the world “New” has been crossed out and replaced with “Old!” This is referring to their classic size, which the crisp itself is rather large compared to other crisps from England. The right hand corner mentions the flavor “Flamin’ Hot” and of course the name of the crisps hovers over the silly blue monster. Let’s rip this bad open and see how the Mega Monster Munch Flamin Hot Crisps taste. In our last review of the Roast Beef Crips we mentioned that the flavor was oddly similar to the Pickled Onion Monster Munch. We hate to say it, but the Flamin Hot is similar to both the other flavors as well. It seems that all Monster Munch tastes similar. All three flavors have a highly processed flavor. Generally that is a bad thing, but we really enjoyed all the three flavors and for some reason that we are not able to put into words, the Mega Monster Munch Flamin Hot Crisps are our favorite among the three. In our everyday lives we are fine dining and high quality food enthusiasts, but sometimes “junk food” is exactly what you need. We do need to mention, there is no spice to this treat at all. Flamin Hot is not an ideal name for this snack. We literally can’t wait to offer Mega Monster Munch Flamin Hot Crisps for sale online. So far we are up to 33 different British Snacks that will be included in our international snack store. If you sign up to the right we will send you an announcement of our grand opening and include a free chocolate bar with your first purchase. We are a small US business so be sure to spread the word to your friend that World of Snacks is nearly open for business. Keep on snacking! 01/01/2014 UPDATE: Monster Munch Flamin Hot is now available to purchase online in our international store. In only 4 days you will be able to buy British Snacks online and have them shipped to you anywhere in the world. Each month following throughout 2014 World of Snacks will add a new country and their best cookies, cakes, candies, and chocolates to our inventory. In anticipation for the launch of our snack store we have reviewed a different British Snack every day this month. Today we decide to take another shot at a British Snack Review Video. Our last video was a review our much-loved Cadbury Flake. Today we are trying a slightly different format and adding a little quirky humor to the mix. We really had a fun time filming this and hope to refine our filming skills and acting in future snack review videos. So check out our British Mars Bar Video Review and do us a favor and share it with your friends! We hope you liked it. if you want to stay up-to-date with our addition of rare and exciting snacks from around the world be sure to leave your details to the right or follow us on Facebook. 01/01/2014 UPDATE: The British Mars Bar is now available to purchase online in our international store. The difference between snacks in America vs the rest of the world can be quite significant. This is one of the reasons we decided to create World of Snacks and our International Snack Blog. Our hope is to gain a peak into other cultures through their sweet and salty treats. Sometimes the difference can be massive and other times very small. Today we are going to compare two snacks which on paper seem very similar. We are comparing British Maltesers vs American Whoppers.
Being Maltesers were created first we take a closer look at them first. British Maltesers were developed by Forrest Mars Sr., an American who was raised in Canada! How did he invent a loved British Snack? Mr. Mars had a fallout with his father and decided to take his share of the business abroad. Rumor has it the fallout was related to his desire to take the brand international. Forrest Mars Sr. first developed the Mars bar in the early 1930s and the Mars Maltesers followed shortly after. The American Whoppers are owned by another snack food juggernaut, The Hershey Company. They were initially developed 2 years after the Maltesers by the Overland Candy Company under the name “Giants.” A merger of several similar sized American candy companies created Leaf Brands and they re-introduced the Giants as Whoppers. The merged company was then bought by a confectionery brand from Finland and latter acquired by The Hershey Company. Now we know a little about both let’s take a look at the differences between Maltesers and Whoppers. Well simply put, the biggest difference is the taste. In order to get accurate details and non-bias opinions we did a blind taste test with 11 US adult males. This is our second taste test challenge with an American vs British Snack. Last time we look at the US vs UK Kit Kat. In our previous comparison the UK snack won. In the case of British Maltesers vs American Whoppers the US nudged out a win by one vote. Our testers stated that the Maltesers had a richer and better quality chocolate but the malt filling was slightly bland. The testers collectively thought the Whoppers had a sweeter more powerful malt filing but a lower quality and less desirable chocolate. Ultimately the US snack won out because most of the testers preferred a flavor that was more familiar to them. All agreed these two malt chocolate treats are very different. Starting at the first of the year you will be able to buy Mars Matlesers and other top-selling British Snacks Online when our international store launches. Every month in 2014 we will add a new country and their best cookies, cakes, chip, chocolates, and sweets to our inventory. In February we are releasing American Snacks and Hershey Whoppers will be included. What’s to follow? We are not sure just yet. Let us know what you’d like to see offered by voting for your favorite snacks. If you’d like to be included on special offers be sure to leave your details to the right. Keep on snacking world! 01/01/2014 UPDATE: Mars Maltesers are now available to purchase online in our international store. |
The Snack Blog
Follow along as we explore cookies, cakes, candies, chips, crackers, and nuts from all across the world. Many of the international snacks that we highlight will be offered in our store over the course of the next year. We currently offer British Snacks, American Snacks, German Snacks, Mexican Snacks, Filipino Snacks, Japanese Kit Kats, Pakistani Snacks, Italian Snacks, & Korean Snacks. Each month this year we will add a new country and their best snacks inventory. Shop
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