No, not a pig, a fish.

For years, Japan has been a potato chip pioneer. Flavors brought to market here in the past few years have included “sushi,” coffee, and matcha chocolate.

Today, though, it’s time for Japan to be innovative not in the field of potato chip-making, but potato chip-eating, with the brand-new Poterapper.

The Poterapper is a chip delivery system that allows you to drink your potato chips. It just went on sale a week ago, but as soon as we found out about it, we knew we had to have it, and so we immediately ordered one off of Amazon (here) for 858 yen (US$7.80)

There are three parts to the Poterapper: the base, the connector, and the cap. Obviously you’ll also need a bag of chips, and since our Japanese-language reporter Daiki Nishimoto (fresh off his test of drinkable video gamer protein gelatin) had a supply, he drew test eater/drinker duty.

To start, you’ll need to make an opening at a corner of the bag of chips that’s about five centimeters (two inches) long, either by cutting the bag with scissors or carefully tearing it. Slide the base piece inside the opening, then attach the connector so that it pinches the bag’s material between it and the base.

▼ Base

▼ Connector

Screw on the cap, and the construction is complete!

His hand shaking with anticipation, Daiki opened the cap, lifted the bag to his lips, and prepared to take his first sip of chips.

Any second now.

Ummm…Daiki…?

▼ “No chips!”

Something had gone terribly wrong, because while the chips were so tantalizingly close to Daiki’s lips that he could smell them, none of them poured into his mouth and onto his taste buds. The reason, as is so often the case with our writers’ ambitions, was user error.

See, the important part about the Poterapper is that it’s a compact opening, small enough to easily fit your mouth around. That’s what allows you to elegantly sip your chips like a well-mannered member of upper spud society, rather than just tearing the bag wide open and pouring the contents onto your face like a savage. Because of its elegant, by-design diameter, full-size potato chips won’t pass through the Poterapper.

So what you’re supposed to do, and the step Daiki inadvertently skipped in his excitement, is to give the bag a few squeezes to break the chips into smaller, drinkable-dimension pieces.

▼ This has the additional benefit of making the pieces small enough so they won’t stick in your throat and kill you.

With that done, Daiki had no problem getting a steady stream of chips into his mouth.

OK, Daiko, so how is it?

▼ “Potato chips are so good.”

No, Daiki, we know potato chips are good. How’s the Poterapper, we mean.

▼ “Awww…so good…so good…”

Daiki…

▼ “SOOOOOO GOOOOOOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Eventually, Daiki came up for air and gave us a more detailed review of the experience:

“You know how there are koi at Japanese gardens, and when you toss fish food into the water to feed them, they look so happy eating it?

It feels like that.”

There are a few other solid benefits to using the Poterapper beyond gleeful gluttony. For one, if you like to snack while browsing the web on your smartphone, playing video games, or reading books, it’ll keep the oil off of both your fingers and your screen/controller/page. The cap’s seal is also air-tight, which will keep any unfinished chips fresh until you can come back to them for the exciting conclusion of your snack saga.

Really, the only potential problem is that since you’re putting your mouth directly on the connector piece, no one else is going to feel comfortable eating any chips from that bag, in the same way that no one wants to drink milk from a carton someone else put their mouth on. But let’s be honest here, if you’re in the mood to drink your chips, odds are you’re hungry enough that you’re not in the mood to share them anyway, right?

Photos ©SoraNews24
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[ Read in Japanese ]