Pesek Zman White

Pesek Zman is an old favourite of mine. It’s usually presented as a single, narrow bar of flat chocolate squares filled with wafer and hazelnut cream. On a recent visit to Israel, I discovered that apart from the growing assortment of flavour variations that now complement the “classic” milk chocolate bar (dark chocolate, white chocolate, sugar-free chocolate, etc.) the milk and white chocolate versions now also appear as bigger bars, divided into long fingers rather than the squares. Pesek Zman means “time out” in Hebrew. Perhaps Elite, the company that makes these bars, thinks people need longer breaks nowadays. I decided to give the new white bar a try and see how the new shape affected it. I’ve seen quite a few bars that did not benefit from such a transition.

Pesek Zman was and is a mass market bar. The packaging is functional and the logo instantly recognisable to anyone in Israel. It’s indeed the sort of thing you would grab to have as a snack, rather than serve your guests after dinner or give as a gift. Each chocolate finger is branded with the logo, though, which I thought was quite a nice touch for an otherwise completely bland-looking bar.

The first thing I noticed when biting into the bar is that it’s quite crunchy. The squares from the original bars have a much softer feel until you get to the wafer itself, which I do believe adds to the sensation when eating them and makes them feel more indulgent. Having a softer bar makes it easier to savour the taste as if you’re really taking a time out to enjoy the chocolate.

In the new bar, the sensation is more like biting through a KitKat, which is not nearly as sensual. Maybe longer breaks are not the issue here, but rather having shorter, less fulfilling breaks but, well, more of them.

Still, the combination of flavours is as winning as ever with the white chocolate and hazelnut cream blending together into a very lovely sweetness that is both cheery and comforting and not at all overwhelmingly sweet: definitely a smile with every crunch. Elite certainly wasn’t the first to think of combining hazelnut and white chocolate but they have certainly done a good job in making it work here.

This is still a good treat that can certainly hit the spot with or without a hot drink. The bigger size does have an obvious advantage of offering more chocolate, though for the true Pesek Zman experience I would still reach for the original, smaller size.

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