Food influencers describe it as “Overwhelmingly surprising” snack. These treats made waves of deliciousness in Korea.
Not only in the native country, but you can find them in numerous grocery stores in the US, UK, and many more.
The internet keeps recommending the refreshments, everybody is going crazy over them - indeed they are Turtle Chips.
Korean snacks are now nothing new to the world, are they? From Korean subscriptions boxes, especially Korean Snack boxes blooming, people have tried, tested, and then tasted the authentic aroma and taste of these treats coming all the way from Korea.
Especially snacks like Buldak Ramen, which challenged people to eat spicy food, Lotte Pepero, the lovely chocolate thin sticks, Bingarrae Banana milk, the partner of late-night refreshments time.
Now, what’s the secret behind all these successes? And why are people going crazy over Turtle chips? Let’s start from the basics.
Origin and Overview of Turtle chips
Turtle chips were launched in March 2017 by a huge Korean company in the food sector called Orion.
In Korea alone, sales hit by 65 million since its launch, revealed the company.
Outside the native country, the snacks started gaining popularity in China first and now taking over the world, especially America.
At the first glance, snackers were attracted to it because of its unique shape and design which is formatted into a shell of a turtle, hence the name - Turtle chips, which was also their USP (Unique Selling Point).
But one can’t really keep loving something because of its shape, there has to be another element to it.
Why Do Koreans Love Turtle Chips?
According to the snackers, one can’t stop munching over these snacks once you open the packets!
They are in demand because of the four layers, and texture, that is puffy, and the last but the most important one - it is one of the crunshiest snacks available.
Along with the shape and texture, Koreans fell in love with its taste.
Now that we are talking about Koreans, why not reveal some facts about foreigners loving it.
Costco, a big box retail store headquartered in the USA, and chains all over the world, introduced Turtle Chips in their shops, especially in the Texas, in 2019 and 2020. They are still selling mega-sized ones and going strong with it as people are buying it in loads.
Details Of Turtle Chips
Texture
First of all just the turtle on the packaging tells us they have the shape of shell. It can be weird for many at first, but once you try it, there’s no coming back.
Snackers say they seem similar to Bugles in respect to the texture. It has four layers of structure to make it crispier and fun to taste. Biting it will surprise you with loud noises each time.
Ingredients
There are immense amount of different ingredients used in the making of this crispy chips. But let’s see the main ones here - Corn flour, vegetable oil, sugar, sweet corn powder, milk cream and many more to give us that end result we love.
Taste
As stated earlier, it might taste like Bugles, but if we were to talk about it’s crunchier side - well, that one thing has been taken to another level.
The four layers of air and crispe puffed-corn texture gave birth to the immense crunch sounds.
It tastes both sweet and a bit salty.
Flavors of turtle chips
Flaming Lime
Flaming Lime is a bit on the salty and spicy side. It explodes bit of hotness in your mouth once eaten.
Highly recommended to spicy snacks lovers.
Chocolate Churros
The name suggests - it’s sweet for sweet tooth.
The typical Churros taste is like fried dough, and mostly made with sunflower oil.
Chocolate churros turtle chips are the same but in chocolate flavor.
Injeolmi
You will taste two flavors in this - a savory chip flavor and soybean flour, but both these will be mild taste and overlapped by Injeolmi, which is nothing but Korean rice cake.
Sweet Corn
Simply explaining, you will get to experience both sweet and salt flavors with this one.
Snackers believe it tastes like the Sweet Corn soup sold in Korea’s convenience stores - when corns are steamed and boiled and made into soup.
What is Turtle Chips’ relation with K-pop?
If you remember the miracle that happened in the start of 2021, then you must be aware of Brave Girls.
They debuted in 2011 under Brave Entertainment. Since the debut till this year, which is around 10 years, the girls faced a struggling phase in their careers with some members leaving and other factors considering.
However, in January 2021, when the group was on the verge of getting disbanded, their 2017 song Rollin’ went viral uploaded by a youtube channel, called Viditor (비디터), changed their lives. It has 23 million views as of now.
It was hyped up by South Korean soldiers as the comments on that youtube video were all like, “If we play this song at the front lines, victory is ours”.
Now you may ask what’s this unexpected little trivia of K-pop? And what’s its relation with turtle chips?
Well, ask we discussed how these girls career were saved, so as their modelling and brand collaboration days.
Yujeong, one of the members of the group, was announced to be the face of the Churros Turtle chips.
And the reason to approach her for the same is so adorable - her smile which is like a squirtle from Pokemon.
See for yourself.
Yujeong’s face on Turtle Chips Packet (Churros)
Which snacks and drinks does it go well with?
You can spread it over your any favorite dish to face some crunchy breaks in the middle.
Or our all time favourite, have it at night while watching your favorite drama with Soju (Korea’s beer brand) and snacks together.
Which one you should go with first?
You can start with Churros (with Yujeong’s face on it) and Sweet Corn flavor - these are our two most flavorites.
Try once now and regret never!
Where to buy it?
These crunchiest things are available in your local Asian or Korean stores. If you want to buy it online, you can go with our Seoulbox boxes. We had Turtle Chips inside our box and the response of our Seoulmates was extremely satisfying.
They were in love with the item.
So, planning to try it soon?
Author - Akshita.
