Tasting Cheetos Flamin' Hot Sweet Carolina Reaper Crunchy Cheetos

As regular readers of this blog know, any time I see a food product claiming habanero or hotter peppers as an ingredient, I have to give it a shot. Ran across these at Walmart yesterday, and of course I had to try them. Now, I'm not really a fan of Cheetos, and I haven't really found much heat in their and Frito-Lay's other Flamin' Hot offerings. But I couldn't resist the Reaper. 

When I opened the bag, the first thing I smelled was.... salt and vinegar! Not real sure why, and I don't know what I expected them to smell like, but it was definitely a bit unexpected. The Cheetos dust was a deep reddish-orange and didn't seem to be present as much as in other flavors of Cheetos - there was very little residue left on my hands. 

The flavor and texture were what you'd expect of crunchy Cheetos. The heat was there, and hit pretty quickly and then built slightly. My first taste was a single Cheeto, and I could still taste a slight residual heat nearly 2 minutes later. It's not overwhelmingly spicy; without looking at the bag and the list of ingredients, I don't think I would have guessed reaper, or really anything other than their standard Flamin' Hot level of heat. 

These Cheetos did give me an idea for some spicy mac & cheese with reaper or ghost pepper cheddar and jack and some of these crushed on top for texture. I can't say that they didn't meet my expectations - the problem is that so many purveyors, especially of snacks and fast food, label things with habanero or ghost pepper or Carolina Reaper but there's no real heat there. I'm not the one doing market research for e.g. Frito-Lay, but I think that if they think there's a market for Carolina Reaper, etc., it's reasonable to assume that people are looking for the deep heat. 

Taste: 6/10 (hey, they're Cheetos.)

Heat: 5/10