joe aero milk chocolates
Joe is a Romanian brand currently owned by Nestle. Its story began in Timisoara in 1994. At first, they only made hazelnut-flavoured Manner-like Neapolitan wafers. I obviously knew nothing about Manner back then, but I remember they were marketing the Austrian connection heavily. The first time I ever bought Joe wafers (it must have been '94 or '95 because I remember being in the fifth grade) was because they had a contest that had as prizes Austrian bicycles and a trip to Vienna. I obviously didn't win anything (well, it's not like I've ever been able to ride a bike, anyway), but I'll probably never forget how that contest introduced me to Joe wafers. They were good, better than most of the other wafers I had tried up to that point.
In 2000, Joe was bought by Nestle. Over the past two years, their product range has expanded. They've created Joe Joyz, Joe Caramel, Joe Lemon, Joe Apple & Cinnamon, Joe Rum. All of these were still wafers or at least wafer-based products. But two weeks ago, I came across the first Joe product that is not a wafer and not even wafer-based...
... Joe Aero! It's a little weird to see how Nestle are transforming Joe, but I'm not complaining. Not much, anyway. I've been seeing images of Nestle Aero on the internet for quite a while. Their wrappers are pretty and that makes them tempting for me... I was particularly attracted to this picture, as I generally love citrus and chocolate combinations. However, I don't remember aerated chocolates ever being a big thing here in Romania. The only aerated bars I've constantly seen in stores are those from Poiana and Milka. So to me, this whole thing looks like Nestle introducing Aero chocolates here using a well-established Romanian brand name - Joe. A daring move, considering that Joe is not a chocolate bar producer, but a wafer producer? Maybe, but then again... the Joe motto is "Dare!"
I found them in the same supermarket as the Vel Pitar Choco Muffin and on the same day. They had two varieties and I decided I would try them both. The first one was Joe Aero Milk Chocolate. The wrapper it came in looked more childish than the Nestle Aero wrappers I've seen on the internet. But I liked it, I thought the colourful balloon and the wacky zipper (which was there to show how to open it) looked cute. Inside, the 24g chocolate bar was divided into six blocks (that's 4g per block... they look bigger than that, but, hey, it's aerated chocolate), with some pretty bubbles on each. As you can see from my third picture, I couldn't manage to break the blocks along the lines between them. The chocolate didn't smell of much and tastewise, it was nothing but a very sweet milk chocolate. It wasn't bad, but I found it too sweet for me. This plus the childish-looking wrapper make it seem like this is a product made especially for sugar craving kids. Which is a pity... because the melt of this chocolate is nice and smooth. Up the cocoa and this could be a very nice bar.
The second bar came in a similar-looking wrapper. The white background had been replaced with an orange one and the inside of the bar was also orange. These were the only two very visible differences. I didn't pay much attention to what was written on the wrapper when I initially grabbed it from the shelf and I just assumed that the orange colour meant a caramel-flavoured bubbly chocolate filling. I was wrong. Oh, I had a very nice surprise when I got home and I read what was written on the wrapper: Joe Aero Milk Chocolate Natural Orange Flavour. Unwrapping it, this bar looked identical to the first one - same size and shape, also divided into six blocks having the same bubble pattern. The diference was visible only when breaking it into pieces: the inside was orange, a much brighter shade than the wrapper suggested. However, if my eyes couldn't pick any visual difference between those two bars while both still in one piece, my nose could sure smell the difference - a strong orange scent hit me the moment I opened the wrapper of the second bar. Tastewise, this was also very sweet and it reminded me of those sweet chocolate-orange vitamins from when I was a little girl. Just like the first one, I sure would have liked it to be less sweet and to have a stronger cocoa influence.
Ingredients:
» Joe Aero Milk Chocolate: sugar, cocoa butter, low fat milk powder, cocoa mass, milk fat, emulsifiers: soya lecithin & polyglycerol poliricinoleat, flavour; may contain traces of nuts.
» Joe Aero Milk Chocolate Natural Orange Flavour: sugar, cocoa butter, whole milk powder, low fat milk powder, cocoa mass, milk fat, emulsifiers: soya lecithin & polyglycerol poliricinoleat, natural orange flavour, flavours, red pepper extract; may contain traces of nuts.
Storage: keep in a dry and cool place.
Nutritional info per 100g of product:
» Joe Aero Milk Chocolate: energy 545kcal, protein 6.6g, fat 32.1g, carbohydrates 56.3g.
» Joe Aero Milk Chocolate Natural Orange Flavour: energy 548kcal, protein 7.7g, fat 32.8g, carbohydrates 55.2g.
Price: 1.6 lei each 24g bar; that's the equivalent of €0.37/ ₤0.33/ $0.52.
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