Chocolatey & Fruity: the Adam & Eve of cereal flavors. Or to be more secular, the Dialga & Palkia. As two admittedly broad classifiers. Chocolatey & Fruity nevertheless encapsulate the vast majority of non-Honey Nut cereals—we’ll call that one Giratina.

But while “Fruity” is a very malleable term, representing every cornucopious blend from Trix to Froot Loops, “Chocolaty” deals primarily in shades of subtlety. Sure, texture aside, you could probably tell the tastes of Cocoa Puffs & Pebbles apart, yet daring revolutions in chocolate cereal technology are rare. Usually things just get fudgier, or tweaked with a supplementary flavor enhancement. I want to know what it tastes like when a cereal brand focuses on refining chocolate and chocolatey flavor alone, which is why General Mills’ Ultimate Taste Comeback—particularly the cocoa’d duo of the four—have high expectations to live up to.

Well that, and we’ve already been slightly disappointed by Retro Recipe Golden Grahams, as well as unimpressed that Ultimate Taste Comeback Trix didn’t actually change anything (further evidenced by the fact that when General Mills sent me all four cereals to sample, they included old Trix box art rather than the fresh, big rabbit-headed version seen in Ultimate Taste Comeback graphics).

Enough exposition! Let’s expose these Puffs and Cookies for what they really are… Continue reading →