Stax 青柠味 Lime Flavor
I found these Chinese Stax chips on a recent trip to Jungle Jim's and thought I'd give them a try. I've tried other chips with lime flavoring before and most of them were pretty decent, so why not?
Silly question.
Ok, right off the bat I saw that the packaging was more like Pringles than the Stax I've seen. Not a problem and rather trivial, but hey, that's how my brain works. Then I opened up the package and things started to really get weird.
Enough about the packaging. On to the important stuff!
The chips had a vaguely citrus scent, not too strong and reasonably pleasant, with some slightly odd undertones I couldn't identify.
At this point I was getting the feeling that things were going off the rails, kind of like one of those insurance commercials where the person just stands there in disbelief as their daily life gets more and more surreal. This was not my typical potato chip experience and I was having trouble making sense of it.
What's next, flavor powder? Right! There was a moderate amount of yellow powder on the chips, with a sprinkling of green flecks. Since the chips were the exact same shade of yellow as the powder it was a bit of a challenge to see how much there was. Some of it did come off on my fingers though. They don't leave a permanent stain but these are chips that probably require a napkin. And then ...
Oh God, they're sweet and very un-potato-chip tasting. I struggled to work out exactly what the flavor was. My mind kept going back to the Wyler's powdered lemonade mix we used to take with us on camping trips, but maybe with a little lime jell-o powder mixed in. I ate several of the chips while trying to nail down exactly what it was, ignoring the screams of my taste buds and the wailing of my standards. But it was no use; I just couldn't get at the buried taste memory.
Then Cindy said it was Froot Loops. She's right.
Rating: 1/4
