Fringe Candy: The Wafery Goodness of Coffee Crisp

I know what you might be thinking. Didn’t you already do a chocolate bar recently? Yes. I did. Now sit down.

Tonight’s post started as a tribute to England. With the riots in London and surrounding cities going on, old Blighty has been on my mind. I always associated the delightfully crisp goodness of the Coffee Crisp bar with England. Maybe that’s because I used to get them at a little British import shop across from my office. Ah, to be young and foolish.

Sure the Coffee Crisp started in England. Ok, it really didn’t. What a messy history this chocolate bar has! The coffee variation was added to an existing line of chocolate bars that originated in the UK, but was marketed in Canada as the Biscrisp. The coffee version came along in 1938. I guess they also had a fruit flavored one which I have to admit sounds pretty damn intriguing. Fruit and chocolate, sign me the hell up! And that’s another post. (I’m looking at you, Cadburry Fruit & Nut Bar!)

So now the Coffee Crisp is a CANADIAN chocolate bar. And as if to rub in just how much cooler Canada is than the US, they even had variant, limited flavors (orange in 2001, French vanilla and triple mocha in 2005, and dark chocolate in 2009).

We get it Canada. You rock! With your beavers, and Mounties, and Tim Horton’s honey-dipped crullers, and fake looking money, and Coffee Crisp. I already want to live there, and you’re not making it any easier. The fact that your bastard parent company of Nestle Canada stopped importing it into the US in 2009 makes me wail and gnash my teeth. To get it now, you have to find a place that brings in candy from British Wholesale Imports. Cruel when you consider they’re made right there across a barely secured border.

So, what is a Coffee Crisp like?

Well, the name kind of gives it away. The core of the bar is a lightweight but super-crispy wafer. Sort of like a Hershy’s Whatchmacallit (without the caramel layer or nuts) or the late, lamented Bar None (without the cocoa wafers and peanuts). In fact, think of it like a big Kit Kat Bar. (This is ironic, as Nestle makes the amazing Kit Kat bar with a wide variety of flavors, especially in Asia, but in the US, it’s made by Hershey, usually just in the one or two flavors. Really, look at the list on this page and tell me we’re not getting screwed on a daily basis by being denied this kind variety! In short, America sucks.)

It has a coffee essence and is simple, flaky goodness in that respect. The whole shebang is wrapped in delicious chocolate. I know, I know, I know. You wonks hear Nestle and all you can think of is the Nestle Crunch bar. What you don’t get is that Nestle chocolate, particularly the good stuff up in Canada (you maple leaf-waving bastards), is sublime, smooth, and delicious.

This is a chocolate bar to savor. If you can get it. Hell. This might be a chocolate bar to move to Canada for. You hear that Newfoundland? Warm up a bar stool. I’m coming your way soon.