Emerald’s Cocoa Roast Almonds

I’ve eyed the container of Emerald Cocoa Roast Almonds every time I’ve gone down the snack aisle at Sam’s Club. During my most recent trip at the beginning of this week, however, I buckled and picked one up.

It’s not that I didn’t want to try them, it’s that I’m always wary of purchasing a big container of something I haven’t tried before. What if we absolutely hate them? That $10 could have easily gone toward something else and I’d kick myself for having wasted it.

In this case, though, the $10 on the 38oz container was not wasted. As you can see from the picture above, the container that I bought Tuesday morning already has about 1/3 missing. My kids love them (they’ve request them for snacks and as today’s treat in their lunchboxes instead of a piece of Halloween candy), my husband loves them, and I’ve got it sitting next to me right now, for informational purposes, of course.

They’re roasted with the cocoa and not coated in chocolate, so the chocolate taste is very subtle and the sweetness, which the label says comes from sucralose, is very light (though sucralose always leaves a little bit of a weird aftertaste to me, I almost wish they’d just use sugar). To me, almonds can start tasting kind of bland after a few, but the cocoa bumps it up to more of a treat, and if I’m not careful I may be making an extra run out to Sam’s this month for another one!

Though I know they’re just covering their behinds, I always get a kick out of nut labels that declare the product contains nuts.