I was sent these Santa Maria Heat, Spice and Shake Corn Chips as part of a campaign for BzzAgent. They sounded interesting because you can heat them up and I quite like the sound of warm corn chips. The cost around £1.30 per 125g bag and contain 474 calories per 100g. The spice mix is sold separately at around 70p per packet; I was sent Smokey BBQ flavor but I believe that there is a Nacho Cheese flavor too.
The first thing that I noticed is that the heating instructions were not very clear. It tells you anywhere between 15 and 45 seconds and then says there are no accurate timings due to microwaves varying. This is a bit annoying, all other foods I have tried seem able to give you timings so I am not sure why Santa Maria can't.
I went for around 20 seconds then added the spice mix and gave the bag a good shake. The chips were coated quite nicely and had a strong BBQ scent to them. Taste-wise they were nothing special, they were cold for a start, so I guess I should have left them in the microwave a bit longer. The flavouring was strong and very salty; I liked the BBQ taste but the spice mix was quite loose so it went everywhere and gave a bit of a powdery texture which you wouldn't get with pre-flavoured chips.
VerdictAn average rating of 3 stars for Santa Maria Heat, Spice and Shake Corn Chips. They seem a bit gimmicky and for me the gimmick failed due to poor heating instructions. They tasted OK but personally I would rather buy pre-flavoured chips.
