New product in Dallas stores: Hershey’s Hot Cocoa Creme Kiss

by Teresa Gubbins

Hershey's Kisses are hardly high-end chocolate but they always intrigue because they've gotten in the habit of constantly introducing limited-edition and new products. One that came out in October but may still be lying around in stores is the Hot Cocoa Crème kiss, a milk chocolate kiss with a slightly softer, lighter-colored center.

On the page, that might sound similar to the Chocolate Truffle Kiss, but where the Chocolate Truffle Kiss is not appealing, the Hot Cocoa Crème is.

Unlike the flat, monotonous, smeary Chocolate Truffle, the center of the Hot Cocoa Crème is firm, but with a yielding quality. That means palm kernel oil, bleh -- but it makes for a better, not so cheesy texture. The flavor of the filling is lighter and frothier than the shell. Like hot cocoa.

Is it the best Kiss ever? No. But it's interesting enough that you might keep the bag around rather than pitching it halfway through.

The other limited-edition flavor out now is annoying: Special Dark Chocolate with Almonds. Dark chocolate is still massively hot because of its reputed healthful effects. But as a so-called new product, this is a cop-out, as it's just the same old Hershey's Special Dark that you can get in about a million forms already, just repackaged in a kiss shape.

For Christmas, Hershey is bringing back its annual Candy Cane mint kisses which combine white chocolate with little candy bits. These are definitely loaded with not-so-good-for-you palm kernel oil, but rare is the white chocolate that isn't.

Finding these is hit-and-miss; SuperTarget is usually the go-to place but sometimes they're only at CVS. Some are distributed only regionally and if you seek information from the Hershey's customer-service line, you’ll get a militantly ignorant response about the availability of limited-edition kisses ("you just have to go to the store and take your chances," said one delightful representative); even the PR people won’t play ball. That means no good intel on the "mint truffle" kiss, the "New York cheesecake" kiss, or – sob – the chocolate malt, all pictured on this Website where some well-connected sprout named Zoe seems to have a line on them all, including the highly desirable green-tea kiss available only in Japan. If anyone sees the "marshmallow" kiss, I'm all ears.

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