Review: Cocoa Puffs (Now With 50% More Real Cocoa)

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That’s a bold claim, Cocoa Puffs.

I mean, you could’ve just said “now with more chocolatey taste!” or called the cereal “SUPER Cocoa Puffs,” but you chose to drop some hard stats on us. Exactly 50% more cocoa, eh? Alright, if you say so: I better go 50% more cuckoo for these.

And trust me, I have a pretty refined Cocoa Puffs palate. Cocoa Puffs is one of the first cereals I can remember eating as a young’n. Back in my early grade school days, I ate a bowl every single morning until I got sick of ’em. One day, in fact, I tried a bowl of Cocoa Puffs with chocolate milk instead of regular milk and got quite literally sick, diagnosed with a condition that doctors could classify only as “Chocolardiac Arrest.”

But what didn’t kill me only made me stronger, and now my taste buds are braced and ready to be blown away by a choco-bombshell. Are you ready, Cocoa Puffs?

En garde!

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I was expecting cereal pieces bursting with dusty cocoa powder, but no dice: just plain ol’ Puffs. I popped one in my mouth, and—holy cocoa-moley, this might be the best dry cereal ever!

I’m traditionally a cereal and milk purist, so it takes a lot for a dry cereal to impress me. For lack of a better description, these addicting Cocoa Puffs taste exactly like a hypothetical bag of Chocolate Doritos. That may sound gross, but it works here: a base of crispy, crunchy corn and an intense dusting of dark cocoa that’s just as savory as it is sweet.

Several handfuls of dry Cocoa Puffs disappeared before I even noticed. I wouldn’t say they taste precisely 50% more chocolatey, but the cocoa experience is much more authentic and rich than the hyper milky, sugary, and artificial Cocoa Puffs of my youth. There’s a brooding chocolate darkness that pleasantly infects every piece.

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Eating them with milk is a little more ho-hum. Pouring on milk all but vaporizes the chocolate frosting from each Cocoa Puff, leaving behind corny husks that cough up only faint ghosts of the salty-sweet chocolate that once was. They also get mushy far faster than most cereals, reaching full soggification at a rate of approximately 60 soggies per second.

What, they didn’t teach you how to measure soggies in high school physics class? This is why we need the metric system.

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The endmilk leaves a bit to be desired, too. While it’s certainly decadent and Nesquik-esque, it lacks the maple syrupy viscosity of the old school Cocoa Puff endmilk that once gave me pleasant sugar-induced hallucinations of Sonny the Cuckoo doing the tango with Montezuma.

But that hardly matters, because these amped-up Cocoa Puffs are my dry cereal of the decade. They even narrowly beat out Reese’s Puffs, mostly because of Reese’s clingy peanut butter powder detritus. I’ve been a bit apprehensive about General Mills’ choice to remove artificial colors and ingredients from all their cereals, but it works stupendously here, probably because they added 50% more natural ingredients to make up for it.

I’m not much of a sports fan (I know: big surprise from the guy who references Pokémon all day), but Cocoa Puffs With 50% More Real Cocoa is exactly the kind of cereal I’d eat out of an oversized, baseball hat-shaped bowl while kicked back in a La-Z-Boy during the latest Sportsball Match.

Count Chocula, take note: this is how you do chocolate and corn right.


 

The Bowl: Cocoa Puffs (Now With 50% More Real Cocoa)

The Breakdown: Despite a “meh” milk game, these revamped Cocoa Puffs hit the corn ball out of the park with an impressive dry chocolate tortilla chip taste.

The Bottom Line: 9 perfectly calibrated sogg-o-meters out of 10

(Quick Nutrition Facts: 100 calories, 1 gram of fiber, 9 grams of sugar, and 1 gram of protein per 3/4 cup serving)

19 responses »

  1. So bummed. I didn’t realized they changed the formula because I don’t buy cereal often. Had a craving so I bought a box. As soon as I tasted it, I suspected that they had changed the recipe. I’m all for healthy but does anyone really buy Cocoa Puffs as a healthy food? If I am reaching for Cocoa Puffs, I am going for the flavor.

  2. The new Cocoa Puffs are awful!!! I have tried but I just through out the box I bought. I am pretty frugal so that is saying something. I will not buy another box until they return to the original recipe!!

  3. The new flavor is absolutely disgusting. I am so disappointed, and I’m on a budget. So for me having wasted my money on this horrible product, makes me even more upset. I even googled “cocoa puffs tasting like chocolate doritos” and I’m not the only person who has thought that’s what they taste like. Why change something that was already good. I am just really unhappy with the cereal. I tried to give them away so my money wasn’t truly wasted, but no one will even take them.

  4. Billy try he Dollar Tree not only will You find the old Cocoa Puffs You will find Them in a 21 oz size (I think?) its larger in fact. Did I mention they are a dollar ? ok, ok no applause send money!

  5. The new coco puffs is terrible! How I wish I could find the original. I am so sad. Just like they destroyed the old ding dongs, twinkies and otter pops. Coco puffs now joins the group 🙁

  6. I duno these new cocoa puffs are straight gross i am frantically looking for all the original ones i can get cause the new ones just are not the same i have been a loyal cocoa puff eater two boxes a week probably but if they keep this new flavor and dont go back i will never eat them again

    • Ditto… I bought 8 boxes of the original after realizing the stores were only stocking this “improved” recipe. Im on my last box now and hate the idea that I’ll have to buy my cereal on amazon from now on.

  7. Though with Kellogg’s CHOCO KRISPIES XXL and Nestle’s amazing Nesquik Cereal we have some similar cereal here in germany the close up of those little choco balls seems quite diferent from what i know and look way more like reese’s puffs than our versions…
    so i’m even more curious now why cocoa puffs just killed the nesquik cereal in the us (aka whats so damn good about them that they seem to produce a better cocoa milk flavor than nesquik ^^)

  8. Just to be clear: do you eat regular cocoa puffs on a regular basis? Cocoa Puffs are one of my go tos and I eat my cereal dry everyday. So I’m really excited for these but wondering, given our different preferences, if the experience will be the same?

    • This is a fair point: my Cocoa Puff consumption is much more intermittent than it used to be. Your frame of reference is certainly different than mine, so your mileage will probably vary when it comes to this cereal.

      You’ll have to tell me your thoughts (as a regular Cocoa Puff consumer) once you try them!

    • I’m pretty interested in what your opinion of the “new” more chocolately cocoa puffs are. Would be glad to see your review after you tried them! 🙂

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