I decided to take a deep dive into the world of tortilla chips, by doing a comprehensive evaluation comparing the flavor, stability, and dipability of different chips. To find out what people look for in tortilla chips I asked a few students, and teachers what they looked for in a chip. Most people said they prefer the scoops or triangle shapes. Specifically, Mr. Hensley said that he wanted a tortilla chip with a dippable nature.
As I asked more questions, I came to the conclusion that some people are loyal to the brands “Tostitos” and “Santitas”. I decided the best way to see which chip was the best was a blind taste test. That way no one could be biased and pick the best chip from just taste and appearance without knowing the name. The taste testers were HHS students (Shaun Plummer 12th and Noelia Fonceca 11th), two journalism staff members (Britany Jack 11th, and Ian Pierce 12th), and three HHS staff members (Mr. Hensley, Ms. Roberts, and Blake McClure). Each person got two chips, one for dipping in different dips, and one plain, that way they could see which chip was truly the best on its own and with dips.
After each person ate the chips they were given a form to fill out with two categories, flavor, and dipping. They had to scale each category from 1-10, 1 being the lowest 10 being the highest score. With four different chip brands Tostitos, Santitas, Simply Nature, and Harvest Farms they tasted which one was the best. An added factor was that two of the chip brands were organic purple corn, while the other two were normal white corn chips.
After I calculated the rankings the overall scores were that Harvest Farms was in last place, Simply Nature in third, Tostitos in second place, and Santitas in first. Santitas had the highest flavor rating and dipping score with flavor being an 8.2 and dipping an 8.7. Shaun Plummer stated, “I was not surprised by the scores. Santitas has a really good flavor and I could tell that everyone else thought the same.” The winning chip also had the cheapest price with the other chips being around $4.00 and Santitas $2.60. In this tortilla chip taste test I concluded that just because a brand might be the most popular a lesser-known brand might be better. Santitas has the most superior flavor and durability for dipping. So, next time you crave salsa and tortilla chips give Santitas a try.