Review: Saffron Road Wasabi Crunchy Chickpeas

Some people just love Wasabi, for some reason.  My brother, for example, eats Wasabi peas like they are candy and I don't quite get it.  I've had it several times and it's fine (I'm more than fine with hot food), but it's not something that I actively seek out like he does.  So, these Saffron Road Wasabi Crunchy Chickpeas would probably be right up his alley.  The question is, will they be up my alley?  I guess that's what the review will find out!  Like the other Saffron Road products I've looked at, I got this one for free from their publicity agent and also like the others, it's six ounce bag with six servings at one ounce apiece and 120 calories per serving.  Since it's Wasabi, it's bound to be hot and in case you didn't now that, Saffron Road makes sure to point it out by fully filling the temperature gauge on the front of the bag.  Yikes.

The chickpeas on these are obviously just standard chickpeas, so I'm not going to waste any time on that.  What makes or breaks these Saffron Road Crunchy Chickpeas is the outer coating and in the case of this flavor, the outer coating is made up of horseradish powder, spinach powder, mustard flour, garlic powder, onion powder and other proprietary spices.  The onion and garlic powders were quite visible on the exterior and the mustard and horseradish powers were quite noticeable by smell.  In fact, my first thought after smelling these was "I'm going to die."  But, I'm willing to make that sacrifice for my readers.  One more quick note was that these seemed quite oily in my hands (canola oil is an ingredient), so that was weird.

That smell was just a harbinger of things to come because once I popped a few of these in my mouth, it was an avalanche of flavor.  Mostly horseradish with a mustard chaser, this was all Wasabi, all the time.  Saffron Road certainly wasn't cheating me on this and while I do love horseradish and especially mustard, this was incredibly potent.  That said, they really did nail the flavor of Wasabi with this.  The chickpeas were crunchy as you'd expect and while there was some onion and garlic flavor in these, it was only barely perceptible as the horseradish and mustard took over.  It definitely cleared out my sinuses.

Buy It or Fly By It?  These are okay in moderation (like a couple chickpeas here and there), but I rarely do things in moderation, so for that reason, I'll give this a FLY BY IT rating because these are just too much.  That rating applies to only me personally though.  In terms of Wasabi flavor, this one was dead-on and if you are a Wasabi freak like my brother, I really do think you'll have a great time with these because these are everything that entails in all its splendor.  Because of that, this product is a success...just not a success that translates to my personal tastes.

FLY BY IT!!