Tom’s Farm Caramel Salted Almond & Pretzel is quite the mouthful to say. Oh yeah, it makes a decent snack too. You won’t find the chewiness or the comfort of a piece of warm and soft caramel in this package, but what you can get is a dumbed down artificially flavored version of a lovely treat. This offering from Tom’s Farm is far from perfect. There should have been significantly more actual caramel added to these. Instead, what you’re getting are lightly glazed almonds and pretzels with a flavored caramel syrup. I know. I know. I’m sad too. These almonds made me cry tears disappointment as I yearned for that gooey caramel texture. Not really, but I’m sure you get my point. If almonds are your thing or you’re just looking for something caramel flavored, you might consider giving these a try. However, there’s so many other great tasting nuts from Tom’s Farm just waiting to be snacked upon. Anyways, enough rambling… Here are my thoughts…
Packaging:
Having gone with the smaller 25 gram (.88 ounces) package once again for this review, I had to another almond count. In this package, there were 13 almonds and 7 pretzels. There’s another discrepancy between the packages, because the Black Sugar Milk Tea Almond only had 11 almonds and no pretzels, of course! I still don’t believe the coating is adding that much weight to the almonds, but maybe I’m wrong. Twenty-five grams isn’t exactly a lot…
Always interesting and always fun, Tom’s Farm really takes their label art seriously. This time we have almonds playing with caramel! Personally, I like the two little dudes down at the bottom with some fancy whipped caramel haircuts. There’s also some giant pretzels bejeweled with salt crystals right at the forefront of this image. The other two almonds are getting right down to work by carrying stone-looking slabs of caramel and the other dripping caramel onto one of the giant pretzels. All round, there’s plenty of fun to be had, just by looking at this label!
Flavor:
Today, I’m going to start with what I didn’t like about Caramel Salted Almond & Pretzel. I wish there was much more salt… Tom’s Farm went super light on the salt and left the flavor tasting more sweet than salty. These are so delicately salted, I almost want to change the name to “Caramel Almond & Pretzel.” The candy coating on the almonds is where most of the caramel flavoring comes into play. The layer of caramel is very, very thin on these almonds and they aren’t salted at all. You can find another delicate dusting of salt and maybe a tad of caramel on the pretzels, but it’s also super light. The caramel flavor is delicious, but it just doesn’t have that satisfying caramel texture. These are tasty, but a bit disappointing…
Aroma:
I feel like there’s an ongoing theme found within the aroma of Tom’s Farm Almonds… There’s always a lack of complexity to the odor, which makes describing it all the more difficult. Caramel Salted Almond & Pretzel does, indeed, smell uncannily like salted caramel. However, it’s lacking the depth to the aroma that actual salted caramel possess. The almonds have a bit more of an aroma to them than the pretzels. I assume this was because the candy coating was only on the almonds themselves.
Verdict:
Tom’s Farm Caramel Salted Almond & Pretzel are far from my favorite flavor combination from Tom’s Farm, but these are still absolutely delish. The caramel flavor is spot on and the pretzels are a nice extra treat. I just wish there was a bit more salt present in the overall flavor. There’s also something very important missing with this almond injected interpretation… That something is the chewy texture of real caramel. There’s something satisfying about the buttery, melt-in-your-mouth chewiness of caramel as it slowly dissolves in your mouth and releases its rich sugary goodness. Unfortunately, this package of nuts doesn’t do anything to address this problem. Because of this missing element, the flavor of caramel falls a bit flat. For this very reason, Caramel Salted Almond & Pretzel remains a package of almonds that falls short of checking all the boxes, but one that I can definitely recommend for sugary snack.
Are you a fan of salted caramel? Do you think pretzels make a good companion to the almonds in this package of Tom’s Farm Almond? Let me know in the comments!
If you’re interested in hearing more about Korean snack nuts or instant ramen, check out my on-going series, Noodle Story: An Exploration of Korean Instant Noodles and my other series, I Think I’m Going Nuts: An Eyeful of South Korea’s Little Snack Nuts, here on Medium.
