If you've been around my blog awhile you may remember that back in November I published a post outlining the disgusting betrayal known as Ben and Jerry's Coffee Toffee Bar Crunch. Here's the gist: B&J stopped using heath-brand toffee, and switched to their own brand of toffee which happens to taste like if you chewed on a tylenol, thereby ruining a classic flavor. At the time I was writing that post, I was hurt and angry. But many moons later I have arrived at the final stage of grieving, acceptance. I had fully internalized the fact that I would never again enjoy the complementary flavors of coffee and toffee together in a cold, dairy-based dessert.

But, there has been a development. Some of you might be familiar with a gelato company called Talenti. Their products are usually right next to Ben & Jerry's in any given grocery store freezer section. A good friend of mine swears by their banana chocolate swirl flavor. He's such a die hard fan that I tried a pint for myself and I'll be damned if it isn't the best banana ice cream I've ever had. Chunky Monkey is Banana Chocolate Swirl's stunt double. If something bad was going to happen to banana chocolate swirl, you'd say "No, do it to chunky monkey. The swirl is important!" Some say that it's not fair to make this comparison because B&J makes "ice cream" but Talenti makes "gelato". These people obviously don't know about gelato's deepest, darkest secret. Are you ready for it?

Gelato...is ice cream. It really truly is. Ice Cream is the narrator. Gelato is Tyler Durden. Remember that girl Kate, from high school? The party girl who hooked up with a bunch of dudes and went to college and suddenly became "Kaitlin" who's super into Jesus and now has a faint English accent? That's what gelato did! Gelato is ice cream desperately trying to reinvent itself. Sometimes people see gelato and they go "ICE CREAM!" and gelato fucking hates that.

Now that we've established they're the same damn thing, lets get to the meat of this post. Talenti released a flavor about a month ago simply called "Coffee Toffee". I had a chance to devour a pint in one sitting a couple weeks ago and I am pleased to report that Coffee Heath Bar Crunch is more or less back! It's not EXACTLY the same. The toffee pieces are smaller and there's a little less of them but the overall flavor profile is very similar. Similar enough for me.

What's more is that this isn't the only instance of Talenti picking up Ben & Jerry's slack. They have another flavor called Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip that is a dead ringer for the B&J limited edition Magic Brownies flavor. The brownie chunks are replaced by chocolate chips but all the flavors are there! It's like there's a person at Talenti just waiting for B&J to pull a flavor off the shelves so they can provide their own version. Their slogan should be "If those morons in Vermont are too dumb to carry this awesome flavor, then we will".

So, if you've been missing CHBC like I have, go out and get yourself some Talenti Coffee Toffee. It will probably cost you a few bucks more than the old Ben & Jerry's version but I think it's well worth it for the resurrection of a flavor we all thought was gone forever.