Tyrant Habanero Guacamole Rings (product information)

I can get my hands on no small amount of Japanese snack food. In fact, I could fill this blog with daily reviews if I wanted to and never run out of options just based on what can be had locally. However, that would be problematic because I'd have to eat an entire package of food or toss a lot of stuff out (not to mention that it'd be expensive), so you get two reviews a week and news pieces like this.

One of the things that I haven't seen available, however, is the line of super spicy Tyrant Habanero salted snack rings. In Japan, I loved these things. They are super hot, and I'd have to be careful not to eat too many (because, as one of my web acquaintances remarked, they taste good going in, but aren't such a great experience coming out), but I really had a thing for them. I tried some of their other products with mixed results, but the rings never let me down.

Tohato has released a line of these spicy rings coupled with the creamy flavors of avocado. As you can see by the pepper scale on their ad above, this is a three out of five, so not as hot as their usual fare. I would be all over trying this is I could get my  hands on it.

If you're interested in a little Tyrant Habanero fun, you can play a Space-Invaders-style game here. You don't need to understand the Japanese. You just click to choose your ship style when the option comes up (and click "skip" on the intro since you can't read it anyway). You can also download some, frankly, pretty ugly wallpapers if you're so inclined. Those can be had here. Note that the top ones are movies. The bottom ones are images that you can download.

Tohato Tyrant Habanero Spicy Cheese Crackers

Have you ever kept a pepper in the refrigerator for far too long? They get all soft and shriveled up. In the end, you've got a flaccid item which is a shadow of its former self. If the red pepper graphic on this bag were truly representative of the flavor of the snack inside, it'd look like one of the aforementioned aged peppers. 

Of course, I was unaware of this when I decided to pick up this discounted bag of salted snacks at "My Basket". I figured it was part of the Tyrant Habanero line which generally does a good job of burning my mouth until I get an endorphin rush. For the discounted price of about 66 yen (85 cents), it was hard to not buy them, especially with the promise of "spicy cheese" with some heat. I should have guessed that there was a reason that they were discounted. On the bright side, there are only 215 calories for the whole bag.

These crackers have a modest cheese flavor which is heavy on the sour powdered milk flavor and weak on the delicious cheese pungency. That is chased rather meekly by a bit of a hot pepper bite. It's actually not so much a bite as a half-hearted nip at the air rather than draws any blood. The crackers are hollow, but not as crispy as their American cousin, the Goldfish cracker. There are also a smattering of peanuts mixed in, but not enough to give you some with every small mouthful. They also are so much heavier than the crackers that they fall to the bottom so you can't really eat them as a mix unless you empty the 45-gram (1.6 oz.) bag into a dish or burrow to the bottom of the narrow bag. 

These are not bad at all, but with the evil jack-o-lantern pepper on the front and the promise of "habanero", I expected something in the way of flavorful teeth. If you are the type of person who wants to fool yourself into thinking you can handle hot peppers, this is the ticket for you. If you want something that'll leave your mouth burning for a little while, give them a pass. Personally, I wouldn't have them again. 

Tyrant Habanero Wasabi Sticks

Sometimes I try something and I like it, but there are negative points to it such that I'm not likely to have it again despite actually enjoying it. That was my experience with these Tyrant Habanero Wasabi sticks. I liked them, but there were a few sticky points (not as in actually sticky) that make a revisit unlikely.

I bought these at the same time as the "Tyrant Habanero" garlic sticks at the same place, AM/PM convenience store. The size is the same, 35 grams (1.2 oz.), as are the calories at 175 for the whole bag. These are about 130 yen ($1.44) and have a similar list of ingredients to its brother product. The primary ingredient is potatoes and there are a ton of nice savory spices like garlic, onion, and meat-based flavorings. Of course, this one also includes wasabi.


Unsurprisingly, these smell like wasabi. The first bite is intensely strange and almost medicinal, but that blows off after you eat a few and then it's a nice wasabi flavor with consistent heat that starts to punch you in the back of the nose as you eat more. As is so often my experience with wasabi, it doesn't accumulate heat on your tongue, but punches you nasal passages. I strongly recommend a beverage to mitigate this effect to some extent. The texture is nice and crunchy, not too airy or dense, but there is a bit of a greasy sense underlying them. This greasiness was less present in the garlic version that I reviewed before.

I liked these, and I ate the whole bag at once, but the truth is that I wouldn't buy them again because of the weird medicinal starting flavor and the greasiness which coated my mouth for awhile after I finished. Those negative points overcame the positive ones of the nice taste, heat and texture.

Tohato Tyrant Habanero Garlic Sticks

I studied psychology with a fairly strong emphasis on biology and behavior. One of the things I learned about was how and what stimulates the brain in a particular manner. In particular, the brain responds to pain by releasing counterbalancing pleasure chemicals. This is one of the reasons people like to eat foods that are hot and spicy despite the sometimes painful burn associated with them. It is a way of tricking your brain into juicing you up a bit.

Whatever the reason may be, I love hot and spicy things and the "Tyrant Habanero" product line always catches my eye. You can identify them in Japan by the evil jack-o-lantern red pepper mascot that graces every bag. There are only two things that keep me from having a constant supply of these snacks on hand, the calories and the fact that they taste great going in but are far less pleasant on the way out.


I came across these stick-style garlic habanero snacks at AM/PM convenience store. Those who want them have to get them at "conbini" as they are not sold in other types of shops. I'm afraid that I don't remember exactly what I paid for this 35 gram (1.2 oz.) bag, but I think it was around 130 yen ($1.44). The entire bag is 175.5 calories, and that's not bad for the quantity of salted snack sticks.

When I poured a few of these out to take the picture, I was reminded of some sort of spicy or barbecue snack stick that I had on rare occasions as a child and really loved. I have a strong sense that the brand name was "Popeye" (and a company named "Allens" makes Popeye potato sticks, but their web site is mum about snack foods), but I couldn't find anything on the web that resembled what I recall. Part of the problem is that Popeye's fried chicken is talked about so much that anything with "Popeye" and "spicy" brings up a chicken-related result. If anyone remembers what I'm talking about, I'd love to hear about it.

These sticks are not very long, about 4 inches or 10 cm each. They have a really perfect potato-based snack texture which is airy enough to be light and crispy but not so much as to feel like nothing. The spice at first carries a heavy garlic flavor, unsurprisingly, but the cumulative effect of the heat soon squashes that out of existence if you keep eating. And, oh, I kept eating. I ate the whole bag and my mouth was on blissful fire by the end. These have a great mix of garlic, onion, paprika, and various meaty flavors so the taste has depth until your tongue is too inflamed to detect them.

I adored these. I'd buy them again in a heartbeat, but I'd try harder not to eat the whole bag at once next time. I've heard that some people find the Tyrant Habanero series too meek for their hot food needs, but I found it just about right.

Tyrant Habanero "Anbiriba Rod"

The "Tyrant Habanero" brand of spicy rings (by Tohato) has been around for quite a few years and I'm a big fan of them. In fact, I like them so much that I don't buy them because I know I'll eat the whole bag. As has been remarked by more than one person who has imprudently scarfed down a whole bag, they taste great going in, but are really not so great coming out. Ahem.

The rings, which I have not reviewed previously, are pretty much the same as these "rods" except that the rods are rolled out versions. they're thinner, easier to eat, and in a smaller package. The good part about this is that, if you can't stop yourself from foolishly eating them all, it isn't nearly as painful later on. The cup contains 35 grams (1.2 oz.) of small rods and 150 calories. They also do not appear to be quite as densely coated as the rings so they're somewhat less spicy, but it is the same spice coating and mixture.


The spices on these sticks include tomato, onion, garlic, pork, mushroom, and chicken flavor powders as well as habanero puree. Because the habanero pepper is so potent, eating a lot of them (especially the ring version) continuously tends to burn out your taste buds ability to sense anything but heat. If you eat them slowly, you get a better sense of the savory nature of the other spices, particularly the tomato. These are potato-based processed snacks, but you really can't taste the potato much through the spices.

These are thin and crispy and I prefer these rods over the rings both in terms of shape and the ability to bite into them without worrying about the shape of the ring landing awkwardly (or painfully) against your teeth or gums. These are fairly hot so you have to have a slightly strong tongue to enjoy them. I've had hotter things than these, mind you, but they are not for those with a sensitivity to spicy things. I would definitely get these again, but I'm a huge fan of hot foods.

If you'd like to display the evil jack-o-lantern style pepper on your desktop, you can download desktop pictures of it from Tohato here. There's an extra freaky one which looks like a bunch of people worshiping the evil pepper. Let's hope it's not some weird new cult.