Japan’s famous Crunky chocolate becomes chewing gum…and it has the weirdest taste and texture

Your brain will feel crunky while eating this Crunky.

If you were to name some of Japan’s most unique chocolate bars, Crunky would have to be near the top of the list. While manufacturers Lotte have never disclosed the true reason for the “Crunky” name, this chocolate is loaded with rice puffs, giving it a texture that cracks and crunches like a cookie rather than a chocolate, leading many to believe it’s the texture that led to the unusual moniker.

▼ Whatever the reason, this “crunky” doesn’t mean “to get stoned and drunk” as it might in English.

While Crunky is an iconic mainstay in the chocolate aisles, it’s now breaking free to appear in another section of the store because, as these images show, the chocolate has now become a chewing gum!

Anyone who’s lived in Japan long enough will likely think this is some sort of April Fools’ Day joke, but rest assured, this is not a joke product — it’s the real deal, and a lot of careful thought and planning has gone into its design.

▼ Opening the pack reveals nine thin pieces of gum, wrapped in chocolate-hued packaging.

These don’t just look like chocolate, they smell like it too, as the rich scent of cocoa wafts out of the tiny packets.

▼ Unwrapping a piece reveals another surprise — the gum looks like chocolate too!

Crunky chocolates are thin, so the gum does a good job of bringing to mind the original product.

As for the taste, well…it’s weird. The gum tastes like chocolate, but the level of flavour is much stronger than what you’d usually expect from a gum, so the sweetness really makes its presence known on the taste buds. The product contains real cacao mass rather than artificial flavour so it has a nice nutty aroma, and as you chew, you discover rice puff-like chips designed to recreate the texture of Crunky, so it’s both crunchy and chewy.

▼ It’s like a delicious chocolate…that never reaches your stomach.

It puts your brain in a hazy, crunky-esque state as your taste buds try to figure out what’s going on. First, it seems to be a chocolate, but then the chewiness fools you into thinking it might be caramel. The crunchy bits prompt you to chew and chew and chew, but as time passes and the nugget fails to subside, your taste buds don’t know what to think.

The confusion continues until the gum loses its taste, when your brain finally realises it’s chewing gum. And when you go to take it out of your mouth, you’ll be surprised because it doesn’t resemble chocolate by the end of it all.

It’s a delicious flavour, but to experience Crunky as a chewing gum is a very weird experience. Still, it’s a fun take on a famous chocolate, and the wrappers feature individual designs that can be reused as origami paper.

▼ Snip the end off and you can make penguins, koalas and plum flowers, following the instructions on Lotte’s Origami Club website.

Whether you’re a chocolate lover or chewing gum fan, this is a product you should definitely try. We’d go so far as to call it one of the world’s most bizarre chocolate-flavoured gums, so keep an eye out for it when you’re shopping in Japan, where it retails for 129 yen (US$0.88).

Photos: ©SoraNews24
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