Salt and vinegar is Popchips’ hardest test. Vinegar needs surface contact. It needs crisps that can hold acidic seasoning without becoming soggy. The popped format, lighter and more porous, creates challenges.
The result is partial success. The vinegar is present. You know you’re eating salt and vinegar. But the intensity is muted, the sourness distributed rather than concentrated. It’s a polite version of a flavour that shouldn’t be polite.
If you like gentle salt and vinegar, these work. If you want the face-scrunching assault that proper salt and vinegar delivers, the format fails you.
Format limitation rather than execution failure. Popchips has done what they can. Vinegar wants more than they can give.
