September 2015 Treats Box Subscription Box Review

Treats is a new monthly snack subscription full of snacks from around the world. You can expect to receive eclectic and interesting snacks that you’ve never sampled before! The Standard Pack offers 4-5 snacks, while the Premium box offers 8-10. You’ll get your first box within a few days, which I love!

The snacks are carefully packed and neatly wrapped in tissue.   It looks beautiful, and due to the careful manner in which the box is packed, we’ve had everything survive shipping in pristine condition so far.

The handy card give gives the English translation of the contents’ name and maker.  Take the link to the Treats site to learn more about each item. This pack featured treats from Korea!

The careful packing extends beyond the tissue.  All the contents are arranged in the box in a very meticulous fashion.  The box is packed absolutely full which means you get as many treats as can fit, and they don’t shift around, so the treats are better protected from shipping damage.The second layer of items.

Everything in the box.  There was a bunch in here, and the packs were much larger sizes than you typically get in try boxes.  The packaging reflects a slightly more dignified branding image than the very busy Japanese packages we saw last month.  It is very interesting to see the different approaches to packaging.  Koreans are the most tech-saturated people on earth, but their candy packaging is relatively refined and elegant.  I’m sure this is the first time ChocoBoy has ever been referred to as refined and elegant.

The packages have export labelling on them in addition to the domestic info, some most of the ingredient and nutrition info is in English.

Orion Cuttlefish Peanut Ball:  American companies just do not make snacks like this.  The crispy outer shell encases an aero-esque truffley layer, with a peanut at the center.  The snack as a whole is spicy and a little sweet.  Somewhere in each globe, however, lay a pocket of fishy flavor (squid, shrimp, and another fishy source are listed amongst the ingredients).  Some bites have nary a hit of  fish — others are stronger.  Odd, but actually very nice.

Cosmos Hot Chicken Ball:  These are similar to corn pops in texture, with a thick glaze like you find on Japanese sesame crackers.   Fairly spicy and sweet, with a strong chicken broth flavor.  Fun to crunch.

Lotte Kancho choco Biscuit:  Similar to Japanese Hello Panda cookies, these look like mini cream puffs filled with chocolate and emblazoned with cartoon stamps.  I found the component parts, however, to be a marked upgrade from Hello Panda — the chocolate is richer, and the cookie is more delicate and flavorful.

Lotte Pepero White Cookie:  Similar to Pocky, but tastier.  Instead of a bland cookies and cream flavor, the coating is a delicious white chocolate.  The cookie stick, coating, and cookie chunks are really thick.  The cookie bits are chunks, too, not flecks.

Orion Choco Boy:  Little cookie stems with a molded chocolate cap.  The chocolate has a surprisingly dark flavor, like it is spiked with coffee.

Lotte Binch:  These are quite different than the appear.  They look like a Petit Ecolier style chocolate covered cookie, but the chocolate is almost bitter-sweet, and the cookie is more of a butter cracker, like a Ritz.

Each Binch has an elegant design printed on the chocolate face — well-dressed ladies, violins, sailing ships, and similar artifacts of (western) high society.

Orion Choco-pie: Yellow cake with a marshmallow center and a chocolate icing.  The cake is light and crumbly, a tad dry, but tasty.

Haiti Sweet Plum Candy:  A traditional hard candy with a the sweet flavor of plum, a very fruit that is very popular in Korea and finds its way into many sauces and preparations.  This is large bag with many individually wrapped candies.

I was really impressed by this box!  There was a good number of items, but the size of each item was astounding — big bags of all the crunchy snacks, likewise with the candies and cookies — every item was provided in a sharable portion (we even received four of the large Choco-pies).  I’m not sure if it is a matter of the curation or the different snacking landscape from which this selection was drawn, but this month’s box (Korea) had more cookie-style items versus last month (Japan), which had more candy.  I tend to prefer the cookie-heavy mix (but the packaging is less wild).  At just under $25, the premium pack is a decent deal too — I spend at least that much on every Trader Joe’s trip and don’t get much more mileage out of it snack-wise.

Visit Treats to subscribe or find out more. You can save 15% on your first month with coupon code HELLO15.