Review: PowerBar Harvest Toffee Chocolate Chip Energy Bar

My first PowerBar review here at the blog was quite successful.  While that bar was from their Recovery line of products, I found that bar to be similar to a candy bar, so I was excited to try out one of their different product lines and dig into this Harvest Toffee Chocolate Chip energy bar.  I knew it wouldn't be like a candy bar because of its composition and appearance, but as someone who appreciates toffee flavoring (it's not for everyone), I was anxious to see how this flavor would translate to this bar.  I picked this one up on sale at Meijer for $1.00 and it weighs in at 2.29 ounces with 250 calories and ten grams of protein.  It's made of "natural" flavor and PowerBar designates that it should be used before or during a workout/physical activity (stage one or stage two according to their three stage workout scale).

First thing I noticed when I unwrapped this bar was how heavy it seemed for something that weighed in at 2.29 ounces.  I guess heavy is the wrong word here...this bar feels dense as you hold it in your hand and that is a nice thing because I often complain that some of these bars are too airy and light.  As for the construction of the bar, it's a hard chocolate base topped with the soy/rice crisp protein mix and then there are some mini-chocolate chips on top.  I would assume that the toffee flavoring is mixed in with the soy/rice crisp mix, but I guess that is what I'll find out when I actually take my first bite!

Well, after my first bite, I can unequivocally say that the toffee is part of the soy/rice crisp mix and it is a strong, but not overpowering taste.  It doesn't hit you immediately, but when it does, you can definitely taste it as you chew the bar.  Speaking of chewing the bar, this bar is definitely chewy like a standard granola bar or a Quaker Chewy bar.  There's not a lot of hard crunch, but the chewiness and toffee flavoring of the bar more than makes up for that, in my opinion.  The denseness of this bar also carries over as well, because when you are eating this, it seems like you are eating a lot more of an energy bar than you actually are if you just go by the product weight.  If fact, the only thing this bar did not do a good job with was the chocolate flavoring because I could not honestly taste chocolate anywhere.  Obviously I knew the chocolate was visually there because of the base layer and the chocolate chips, but the strength of the toffee flavor made the chocolate flavoring virtually undetectable and that's not a good thing considering that the name of the bar sells that there is chocolate involved.  That said, the lack of chocolate flavoring did not detract from the bar as I found the toffee flavoring to be more than appetizing.

Buy It or Fly By It?  For me, this one gets a BUY IT rating because of my like of toffee flavored products (ice cream, Heath bars, etc.).  If you don't like toffee, you aren't going to like this bar because that's all you are going to taste when chewing this one.  I wish the chocolate flavor would have been stronger in this bar, but hey, beggars can't be choosers I suppose and ultimately, PowerBar has got a pretty good bar here.

BUY IT!!