Aren’t potato chips just great? They’re the ultimate comfort food (well, at least they are to me) and they come in a wide variety of flavors to suit your every mood. Well, there’s going to be another novel flavor for potato chip lovers in Japan to try, and the flavor is not the only thing that’s interesting about these new potato chips.

Major Japanese snack manufacturer Calbee has recently come out with their new “Luxury Vanilla Flavored” potato chips.  They are now sold at convenience stores around Japan and will become available at other shops and locations from the end of April. Vanilla flavored potato chips may sound unusual, but in Japan, salty-sweet snacks like salt flavored caramels and salty cream roll cakes have been very popular in recent years. So what makes these new potato chips unique? Well, they are saying that the vanilla flavored chips are delicious eaten cold and will make a perfect snack when the weather starts to get warmer in the coming months.

According to the press release from Calbee, the new potato chips are quite a gourmet creation. The chips are cut thick with ridges and coated with thin strips of vanilla cream, combining the salty flavor of regular chips with the sweetness of the cream. The vanilla cream is made from highly aromatic quality vanilla beans from Madagascar, and they have made sure the cream is not too sweet so as not to ruin the total flavor. The chips are sold in 58 gram (approximately 2 oz.) packages that contain 329 calories each.

I was able to buy a bag of the chips at a local convenience store and tried them with anticipation. They were not too sweet, and the salty and sweet flavors really did compliment each other well. In fact, the combination made it hard to stop eating them. They tasted quite refreshing cold, too.

Calbee has already been selling “Luxury Chocolate Flavored” potato chips since 2010, and it will be interesting to see if this new flavor proves to be as popular.

Source:Calbee press release (Japanese)