As you know, I love snacks. Even better is snacks from other countries. And best yet, snacks with interesting flavors. Which gets us to Haitai, a South Korean brand.
"Established in the year 1945, HAITAI Confectionery & Foods Co., Ltd. is a leading confectionery and food company and one of the largest manufacture of high quality products, with the annual revenue of approximately 700 million US dollars. HAITAI operates 5 plants, R&D center and 18 distribution centers across Korea. Those manufacturers produce chewing gums, biscuits, snacks, candies, chocolates, ice creams, frozen foods and other premium food products."
Yes, Haitai is big huge brand, that makes tons of things I like: snacks, chips, chocolate, ice cream, and more. Even with their huge product catalogue, I only have tried one item, but it was unique and fascinating enough that I decided it warranted a blog post.
In 2014, Haitai partnered with Calbee to introduce the world to honey butter chips, a product that Calbee had developed in Japan, but didn't find success on the market with. They poured a ton into the marketing, featuring some k-pop stars, and, well, it paid off. Apparently, in South Korea, a resulting trend, "Honey-Butter Craze", resulted, with stores selling out constantly. There were waiting lists to get some. Rationing. They came out with follow up limited editions to keep up the craze, with flavors like "Cherry Blossom", "Lavender & Blueberry", and "Wedding Cake", among many others. Currently, they offer the original honey butter, and a maple syrup honey butter version.
I'd love to try more of their general product catalogue, and certainly more flavors of these unique chips.
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| Honey Butter Chip. |
"Sweet honey & butter flavored potato chip."
"Thin, buttery, and irresistably crispy, the perfect snack for movie night."
"Salty with just a hint of sweetness."
"The perfect snack for when you're craving that mouthwatering combination of salty and sweet. Light and crispy, there's a reason these tasty chips are one of the most popular snacks in Korea."
Um, I really didn't know what I was expecting when I got these. I like honey. I like butter. I definitely like to slather things, particularly corn muffins or cornbread, in honey butter. And I obviously like chips. I've had a number of non-generic American chips flavors over the years, so I knew these would be unlike anything I'd had before, but, they still surprised me by just how ... different they were.
The base is a pretty classic thin and crispy potato chip. I really liked how my bag had assorted sizes, including smaller broken pieces, as odd as that sounds. I like grabbing the broken ones by the fistful. Good chip base, they sorta reminded me of classic Lays.
But the coating is what makes these unique. And well coated they were. Some of the most well coated chips I can recall ever having really. And that coating is certainly what kept me going back for more. It was uncanny in its honey butter taste, but also had a surprising amount of additional complexity to it. Yes, sweet and salty, and yes sophisticated honey sweet and savory butter, but, there was a lot more going on.
What makes them taste like honey butter? Well, there is some honey (powder) in them, and there is some butter, but there is also a rather scary list of ingredients that make up the "honey butter taste seasoning", with starts with fructose and sugar, and then salt, so, yes, sweet and salty for sure. They also have skim milk powder, yeast powder, soybean protein, whey powder, and a slew of chemicals, along with soy sauce and parsley. It somehow combines into this, well, honey butter-eque taste, with a savory edge to it, that I couldn't quite tell if I loved, or disliked, but made it impossible to stop eating them to figure it out.
This bag was a full size bag, intended to be many servings. I somewhat shamefully need to admit that I ate 90% of the bag in one sitting, even though I kept saying to myself that I'd have "just one more" and "save enough to have a real second serving". I couldn't believe these didn't have MSG in them, as I hoped that would explain my total lack of self control around them, but alas, no such easy "excuse".
In the end, I think I really did like them, but, certainly a strange flavor. ****.
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