The cookies/biscuits section in my local Shop-Rite has gotten more diverse over the past few years. Which really helps me in my searches for new items to post about. Anyway, a week or two ago I encountered something called "Coco Rolls." They were unfamiliar to me, and they were products of Thailand. So score! I bought both the original kind, and the espresso ones, which come to us from the folks at Sun Tropics, Inc.
Sun Tropics was founded by Ashley and Sharon Lao, back in 2002. Sharon and Ashley are listed as being first generation Filipino Americans.* Given their shared surname I think they're sisters, or at least close relatives in some capacity. (I couldn't find this out online.) Also, I've seen Sharon referred to as "Sharon Sy," so evidently she married and changed her surname. The business's headquarters are in San Ramon, California. The stated goal of Sun Tropics is to import and provide the foods that the ladies enjoyed in their childhoods, with a special emphasis on tropical fruit, and authentic street foods. The company makes products in three main categories--snacks, juices/nectars, and Silo streetfoods. Some examples of their snacks include tapioca puddings, coco rolls, banana chips, rice puddings, and mochi snack bites. Juice and nectar selections include dragonfruit guava nectar, organic watermelon juice, lychee nectar, and mango nectar. And the Silo streetfoods include Thai sweet chili sauce, Korean Japchae, and Thai red curry.
The coco rolls I purchased and ate were "inspired by traditional rolled-thin pancakes sold from pushcarts in Thailand." As far as I can gather these were probably the Thai treat known as kanom krok. Sun Tropics' take on them is a bit different, in that its rolls are drier, and rolled into a hollow tube shape. But the ingredients appear similar.
Sun Tropics coco rolls, espresso flavor: These were hollow tubes about 1.75 inches by .5 inch (about 4.5 cm. by 1 cm.), with a light brown color. They did indeed look like rolled up pancakes or waffles. They were dry and crunchy. The taste was okay. Which surprised me, since my hatred of coffee, and coffee-ish flavors is surely well known by now. They did have a recognizable coffee like flavor, but not enough to be bad.
Sun Tropics coco rolls, original flavor: This kind had the same size, shape, and texture as the previous ones. The only visible difference was that these were a lighter color, kind of a light yellowish-orange. They were also dry and crunchy. The flavor was rather reminiscent of vanilla cream wafers to me. Or, good. I liked these better than the espresso kind, and would recommend them. And I guess if you like coffee-like flavors you'll probably enjoy the espresso ones quite a bit, too. Overall then, if you're looking for a new kind of cookie/sweet snack, you could do a whole lot worse.
* This small bit of info caused me to realize that I've been misunderstanding a basic term for quite some time. I thought "first generation" referred to the first generation born in the new country. But it's not--most sociologists and others use "first generation" to mean the first group to travel to the new country, and their kids, born in the new country, are "second generation." (Some folks disagree with this definition, but it seems to be the most popular and accepted.) I find this more than a little awkward and confusing, especially since "generation" also means the different ages of different sets of family, i.e., the children are one, the parents are another, and the grandparents yet another. But I guess from a technical standpoint if an immigrant family of a grandparent, children, and grandchildren settles in a new country, all of them are first generation, and the great-grandkids of the oldest are the second generation. (For the record, I couldn't discover if Ashley and Sharon were born in the Philippines, but presumably they're using the more prevalent definition of immigrants.) (Also, I'm aware that my digression on immigrant generation labeling is almost as long as the original post itself. Oh well.)
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