Glico Pocky Cacao 60% Bitter Chocolate Sticks — 2 Packs

Pocky made with a properly bitter chocolate: cacao is the first thing on the ingredient list, ahead of both the flour and the sugar, on a cocoa biscuit stick instead of a plain one. The sticks are thicker than ordinary Pocky, and the same length. Buy it if ordinary Pocky is too sweet for you but a block of dark chocolate is more than you want; if 70% dark is already your everyday chocolate, this tastes milder than what you are used to and is the wrong one.

On the pack: ポッキーカカオ60%.

What you're getting

• Cacao comes first on the ingredient list, ahead of the flour and the sugar. That single change is what the whole product is.
• The stick is cocoa, and darker than you expect. It is baked deep brown all the way through, not the pale biscuit under a normal Pocky, and it tastes of cocoa on its own.
• Each stick is thicker, at the same length as a normal Pocky, so a small bag has more in it than it looks.
• "60%" describes the chocolate, not the whole stick. The coating is a 60% cacao chocolate; the biscuit underneath is a biscuit. So it is bitter, but it is not a 60% dark chocolate bar.
• Keep it below 28°C, which is what the pack asks for. It is chocolate on a thin biscuit, and a hot car will finish it.
• Allergens: contains milk, wheat and soy. Read the pack's own label before you rely on ours.
• One thing worth knowing: it contains inulin, an added plant fibre. If fibre supplements upset your stomach, this one has some in it.

How bitter it tastes depends entirely on what you are used to, and Japanese buyers split cleanly along that line: people coming from ordinary Pocky say it is far stronger than "60%" led them to expect, while people who already eat high-cacao chocolate call it mild. Both are describing the same box. It is also worth knowing that Glico quietly made the bags smaller in 2024: the sticks themselves are unchanged, but there is less in a bag than there used to be.