Snack Reviews: Salted caramel crisps

I'm pretty limited in my choice of crisps here, generally. There's no salt and vinegar, which as we all know is the superior flavour of crisp. Instead, the most popular varieties appear to be consommé (Japan is really into consommé) and butter. Not really to my taste. I've noticed that crisps are sometimes a little bit sweet here, and the melange of flavours can be a little confusing for my palette. Overall I just prefer to steer clear, which I'm sure has come as a great relief to my poor squeezed-up arteries. I've found a couple of exceptions though. The delightfully named 'Deepo' brand does a very good duplicate of McCoy's sadly discontinued ham-and-mustard from back home - a little more hollow and woody in texture, but almost identical in taste and pleasingly ridged. Last year there was also a limited-edition KFC flavour, which was brilliant (and when it returns in March I shall have enough empty packets around me to build a little fortress). Both of these came from Calbee, who appear to be the reigning monarchs of Japanese crisps.

As I said, I rarely treat myself to a packet these days. But then I saw something that shocked me, nay, invited me to as-yet untasted alleyways of delight. Calbee's new salted caramel crisps. Clearly I was meant to buy these. Salted caramel has been ubiquitous the last couple of years - the sleek, edgy, trendy niece to treacle pudding's dumpy aunt - but that's because it's completely delicious. And to my mind, it seemed a more practical idea than sweet crisps in general. Crisps are salty, salted caramel is salty. How could this fail?

As an amuse-bouche I got another newish Calbee flavour, Japanese seven-spice chili. I got it because it seemed more reliable and less of a novelty, and also the packaging reminded me of Walkers Sensations Thai Sweet Chili, which would easily be in my top three of crisps if it weren't for the obscene pricing. Off I went to finish the rest of my boring shopping, and then home for the moment of truth.

First, the seven-spice. It was very good. Despite the vaguely intimidating name - seven's quite a big number, ergo it must be quite a big amount of hotness, surely? - seven-spice chili is a common ingredient in Japanese cooking and is pretty mild in terms of heat, with a pleasingly light, citrus-y flavour. When I opened the bag the scent was zingy and a little sweet. Oh, and when I actually tasted them, I realised that they taste exactly like Froot Loops. Exactly. Well, a bit more chili-ish, I suppose. Not quite what I was expecting, but it walked the line between sweet and savoury well, which gave me little more faith in the salted caramel idea. To the second packet!

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In my head, the idea worked really well. The salt, the nutty caramel, the subtle sweetness, it was all working in my nasal imagination. But when I finally opened the bag and sniffed, I reeled. It was very...buttery. But not in a good way.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about the whole situation, to be honest. I wonder if it's like when you take a drink of something but you expect it to be something completely different, and the shock of it makes the taste disgusting even though it's still something you'd usually like. Maybe my mind just can't handle it. But these were really not nice. Kind of a mildly rancid butter flavour, which someone had tried to cover up with sugar. I wanted them out of my sight immediately, but I made myself continue, because I have the spirit of adventure within me. After a couple of bites I calmed down a bit from my initial disgust and settled into level-headed exploratory nibbling, but I still didn't feel very happy about them and ended up throwing away 90% of the packet. I just don't know what to think. I wanted to like them. I really, really did.

Still. I took a look at Calbee's website and KFC comes back in three weeks. That'll salve my fetid wounds.