Jagarico Report: Salty Lemon Review

My absolute favorite Japanese snack is Jagarico. They're extremely crunchy sticks of potato that come in a bunch of different flavors. Apparently they're a pretty polarizing snack, with some people hating the extreme crunch (going so far as to soaking them in water before eating them) and some people living for it. 

Their standard flavors are "salad", "cheese" and "plain salt." Salad is my favorite out of the choices, but sometimes I get bored with that. So I'm always on the lookout for the limited edition Jagarico flavors.

I came across their take on summer at my local 7-11 recently. They decided to go with the "salty lemon" flavor for summer.

Look at that packaging! Doesn't that just scream summertime to you? It did to me, and since it's still scorching hot right now, I was hoping that Jagarico could capture the refreshing flavor pictured on the packaging.

Unfortunately, the sticks in the package didn't look particularly summery. They looked pretty plain, actually! But I was immediately hit with a whiff of lemon. That was promising.

Taking my first bite, I was curious how they'd fuse potato and salt and lemon together into a delicious snack. And even though I was expecting all those flavors together, I was still surprised at actually tasting all the flavors. 

To put it bluntly, it was disgusting. It tasted like someone soaked a plain salt Jagarico in lemonade for too long then dried it out. My beloved Jagarico had disappointed me for the first time! It was actually so bad that I couldn't finish it all... I had to throw it away.

I personally didn't like it, but another Jagarico fan I talked to really enjoyed them. (Enough so to actually go out and buy another container at a different date...) I guess I like the richer, savory flavors more so this was too extreme for me. This is one Jagarico product that I can't recommend.

★☆☆☆☆ (1 out of 5 stars)