Review: Nestlé White Lion

One might easily think that the White Lion bar is simply a variant of the regular covered with white chocolate (or “frosting”) instead of the usual milk chocolate. And on the composition and component level this is certainly true. However, once this bar enters your mouth it is an entirely different story. The major improvement is the soft caramel in this bar as opposed to the tough caramel in the regular Lion bar.

As with the original Lion bar and the Lion bar with peanuts, the basic idea is to add a layer of caramel to a wafer and coat it with chocolate. This challenge is to get the wafer to stay crisp. If this fails the result is a dull wafer with the texture of cardboard. Also one has to strike a good balance not making the wafer too light and not making it too substantial. A too light wafer will not provide good texture (as well as satisfying your chocolate hunger!) and if it’s too substantial will make the bar too compact.

So, how did the White Lion bar deal with these issues?

The wrapper is a little too bombastic for my taste, though the bar itself looks nice and a cross section view is also nice. Perhaps a little decoration, in the form of contrasting colours, for example, might add to the appeal of this bar. Appearance: 7, 5 out of 10.

The aroma is that of artificial cake, as with the regular Lion, with a hint of coconut (though none is listed in the declaration). The aroma might come from the glucose or from the condensed milk used. Aroma: 7 out of 10.

The texture of the bar is nice, with soft, smooth as well as crunchy textures from the wafer. The wafer, however, comes close to cardboard because it is not crunchy enough. Still, the texture of this one is much better than the regular Lion which received a 6 out of 10 for texture. Now I’m thinking perhaps this bar was stored under less than ideal conditions and perhaps I should soon do a retest. I think a good balance was found on the weight of the wafer. Texture: 7, 5 out of 10.

There is not much flavour in terms of chocolate and it entirely lacks the characteristics of good white chocolate. The white chocolate covering seems to me more like a “frosting”. The wafer has a wheaty and artificial taste. It is very sweet and has notes of caramel and glucose. I agree with Jim's review, over at Jim’s chocolate mission, that the flavour of this bar is somewhat lacking. Flavour: 6, 5 out of 10.

Average: 7, 125 out of 10.