I can’t think of a chocolate bar more stereotypically Canadian than Coffee Crisp. In addition to its presence in every grocery store on this side of the border, it has a reputation for being something Canadian expats pine for. Some smuggle cases across the border while returning from trips back home, while others use visiting friends and relatives as Coffee Crisp mules.
We make a surprisingly large number of chocolate bars in Canada, but there are a limited number we specifically identify as Canadian. Thanks to various mergers and acquisitions over the decades, many venerable brands we grew up with are now under international ownership. Mondelez and Nestle are both big international players in Canada, but both also have large production facilities in Canada. And while there are occasional attempts to introduce a regional Canadian candy brand to a foreign market, the common result is that it never quite catches on, despite its ubiquity at home.
Would it be outlandish to claim that Coffee Crisp is the Tragically Hip of chocolate bars? Maybe. But consider that it’s an acquired taste, has a diehard following, can be easily found at hockey arenas, and never really caught on outside our borders. So maybe it’s not such a leap.
Coffee? Crisp?
The first thing you notice about Coffee Crisp is the bright yellow packaging, followed by its boxy shape. The bar is large and blocky and looks like a chocolate bar, but it’s effectively an airy, crispy wafer cookie inside a thin “chocolatey” coating — a sneaky act of chocolate-bar cosplay. It’s the layers of wafer and frosting/icing that give Coffee Crisp its crispness, and it’s either something you like or you don’t. It’s certainly different from what you’d get out of a solid slab of milk chocolate, or a bar packed with nuts or chewy nougat.
Biting into it takes more force than you’d expect, but once it’s in your mouth, it dissolves quickly, with the frosting layers ramping up the sweetness as the whole lot turns to a sugary wafer mush. This thing is SWEET.
While there is indeed some coffee in a Coffee Crisp bar — and it’s an important part of the overall flavour — the amount of coffee is minimal, so don’t expect a caffeine jolt. (If you want caffeinated chocolate, try Awake, which I’ve also written about.) It tastes like a mocha you’d get at a fast-food chain, in that it’s a whole lot of sweet, rounded out with milky, chocolatey, and coffee flavours. While eating one, expect to get crumbs everywhere.
Do I love it? It’s OK. When raiding the candy bowl at Halloween, it wouldn’t be the first thing I’d grab, but it wouldn’t be the last.
The Details
Price: $0.91 at a Dollarama in Edmonton, Canada. That’s quite cheap.
Value for Money: At that price? Fantastic. Expect to pay closer to $2 in other grocery and convenience stores.
Availability: In Canada? Everywhere. Outside of Canada? Good luck. It sounds like there are some pockets of availability in the US, and that British import shops may sometimes carry them south of the 49th. Presumably because British import shops are a thing in the US like they are in Canada, while Canadian import shops may be harder to come by. Best to consult your local Canadian whisper network.
Nutrition: 260 calories per 50-gram bar.
Verdict: Not the first chocolate bar I reach for when I have a craving for chocolate, but it’s a classic for a reason.
