The Oreo Post by Shuli J. '22, MEng '23

In July 2018, in my application to be a blogger, I left a note at the very end:

One last thing: in Canada, we have approximately three oreo flavors. In the US, you have like twenty. I am fully committed, when I arrive at MIT in the fall, to trying each and every one of these flavours and writing a review at the end of the process. If hired as a blogger, I will guarantee you exclusive rights to the publishing of this review and all associated anecdotes and photos.

It is now May 2023. I have been a blogger for five long (and excellent) years. I have tried SO MANY Oreo flavors. And the time has come for me to share what I learned with you.

I have to admit up front my cardinal sin: I have not tried all the flavors. I think it would almost be true to say that I’ve tried all the flavors sold in the U.S. in the past five years, but even this more limited statement may not be true: the more unusual ones are often only available for a month or two and I may have missed some while away or during the pandemic. Over the course of this project, I’ve also come to realize that there are many more flavors sold in other markets; I couldn’t possibly hope to try them all without bankrupting myself with import fees and burying myself in Oreos. So, this post is a best-effort — but if you make it to the end (or if you give up early due to length :P) I think you’ll agree that the effort was pretty good indeed.

A few logistics: I’ll go through each flavor in the order I tried it and give a quick review and some anecdotes. Then I’ll wrap up with my overall thoughts and a tier list! In this post, I will not review the most common varieties of Oreos. These are ones that I’ve seen and eaten numerous times as a child in Canada: original, chocolate, and vanilla. Even if you haven’t tried them, I don’t think it would be helpful for me to describe them; these are the baseline against which all other Oreos can be compared. I’d recommend giving them a try, and they should be readily available in most locations. I also want to note that I won’t review every single flavor combination – for example, you can buy mint oreos, original oreo thins, and mint oreos thins. I won’t review mint oreo thins, instead counting them as simply a combination of oreo thins + mint oreos. This is partly because they’re typically very similar and partly because not doing so increases the number of unique flavors to an unmanageable extent.

1. Freshman Year

Freshman year got off to a great start because after I mentioned my Oreo quest to my new roommate, she brought me two interesting flavors to try! I thought that was really lovely of her, especially because she had come in on a plane from the Bay Area and had to pack all of her stuff into a huge suitcase. The two flavors she brought ended up being one of the best and worst I would try throughout the whole project, which is pretty funny.

Choose carefully: one always lies and one always tells the truth…

Cinnamon bun: really quite good. The cookie itself is differently flavored, not just the creme, which often sets the better flavors apart. The cookie has a graham cracker kind of feel to it, which helps to cut the sweetness of the creme. The creme itself was a little disappointing, tasting more ‘sweet’ rather than actually ‘cinnamon’-y.

Rocky road trip: extremely weird. The front of the packages advertises that the cookies have “soy nut inclusions”, and to be honest that descriptor sounds exactly how the soy nut inclusions tasted: surprising and kind of bad. They did give the filling a nice texture, with a bit of soft crunch a la lucky charms marshmallows. But ultimately, the cookie itself tasted bland and the creme’s flavor was weird in an unpleasant way.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie: I bought these on my very first grocery shopping trip of college! I felt like a real adult walking into the store and quickly learned why real adults write shopping lists, as I got overwhelmed and forgot all of the real food I had intended to buy. I found that the peanut butter was too strong here and made it hard to taste the chocolate (but I like chocolate more than PB, so this could be a bonus to someone who feels the other way). The sweetness balance felt good, though, which makes this better than many other varieties.

Red Velvet: I bought these when our GRT⁠01 Now called a GRA and sometimes called an RA elsewhere; a graduate student who lived on our floor and gave us life advice. took us on a group trip to the store, which was awesome because he had a car so we didn’t have to lug our milk home by hand. Opening the box hit me with a strong smell of cream cheese, but the Oreos themselves didn’t taste that strongly of it (again, a pro or a con depending on your opinions). Frankly, this flavor just tasted sweet, with not a lot else going on, making it not horrible but not particularly appealing.

Peppermint Bark: These were an IAP purchase. My grocery shopping always shoots through the roof in IAP as I stock back up after finals and winter break, and because I have more time to cook. I really really liked peppermint bark! There were little crunchy pieces throughout the filling that gave it a fun texture (but without the weird taste of rocky road trip). The flavor wasn’t too sweet or weird; it was actually quite light overall, and I almost wanted it to be stronger. This desire kept me going back for more Oreos — actually wanting to eat more after the first one or two was a rare occurrence during this project.

(I proceeded to get very hosed and hit the freshman credit limit freshman spring; I have few memories of this time and even fewer Oreo reviews.)

2. Sophomore Year

The next two flavors, I actually did buy in Canada! I went home for the summer and tried these with my parents.

Pistachio Thins: These are an exception to my rule to typically not try the combo flavors because you actually can’t get the pistachio flavor in the regular Oreo format! Not sure why, as the pistachio thins were great. The flavor is definitely more on the artificial side (think pistachio ice cream), but still delicious, and there’s a nice balance where as you take a bite, the chocolate cookie starts out stronger but the nutty pistachio comes through at the end. I think a more gently-flavored cookie would have made these just perfect.

Dark Chocolate: Honestly, the dark chocolate Oreos were just fine. They weren’t that different from regular chocolate Oreos (which I admittedly love), and although the chocolate flavor was a bit stronger, they were also a bit sweeter which felt counter to the typical expectations for dark chocolate. Ultimately, they were too sweet for us.

Caramel Coconut: These were another IAP purchase (notice how sophomore fall disappeared? Let’s call that another poor decision with respect to time management.) The caramel flavor was a bit artificial, but not too bad. The coconut was supposedly in small chips, but they weren’t very noticeable either texturally or flavor-wise, making these feel like they were just caramel flavored. They were super sweet which just made them hard to eat (you may be noticing that this is an overall theme with the weird flavors).

About a month and a half after buying the caramel Oreos, the pandemic hit. I spent the first six months at home in Canada with my parents, then moved into an apartment in Cambridge with friends for my junior year. For most of this time, we were getting our groceries delivered; that, combined with a general feeling that the world was a little short on joy, led to a lack of new Oreo flavors in my life. I did try two, though:

Chocolate Marshmallow: Another one that was just “fine”. It felt like a blander version of the normal chocolate Oreo. I don’t think you would notice the marshmallow if you weren’t looking for it, but with careful attention it does come through and is pleasant, if light.

Chocolate Hazelnut: A similar experience but somewhat better. My original notes read: “Tastes like you took 30% of the flavor out of a chocolate Oreo and then put 15% hazelnut back”. I like hazelnut a lot, so this was a win for me. I also liked that they weren’t too sweet, maybe because they were more lightly-flavored overall.

At this point in the post, you’ve made it through exactly half of all the Oreos. If you’re like, “whaaat, really?!” — me too, man.

3. Senior Year

Senior year was back on campus, baby! Knowing that the end for me was coming nearer, but the Oreo list wasn’t getting any shorter, I made a concerted effort to try to get through all the flavors I hadn’t had yet. A lot of the ones left were ones I hadn’t tried because I didn’t think I would like them, so I started bringing them to blogger meetings so that other people would help me finish them.

Birthday Cake: This one is not. it. It feels like they took vanilla Oreos and just made them worse — sweeter, more artificial in texture and flavor. It does look pretty though!

Coffee: Opening the package felt like getting suffocated with an artificial-coffee-flavored pillow. The Oreos themselves tasted a lot better than they smelled, but that’s saying very little. I thought I would dislike them because I don’t like the taste of coffee, but actually, they only tasted slightly like (fake) coffee; mostly they just tasted overwhelmingly and disgustingly sweet.

Mint: Again, I thought I might dislike these because I don’t like the taste of mint,⁠02 To such an extreme extent that I use kids' toothpaste to avoid the mint-flavored kind but actually they only taste faintly of mint. These were not as bad as coffee; they were less sweet and the gentle mint flavor was somewhat pleasant for a bite or two. I definitely still did not want to go back for more.

Gingerbread: These were pretty good! A welcome relief after the last few. They weren’t as strongly spiced as real gingerbread typically is, and they were still a little too sweet, but overall the sweet-spice balance wasn’t bad at all.

Toffee crunch: Another entry in the “textured with small pieces” category, but I felt like the pieces were a little too small to be noticeable. This mostly just tasted like sugar, but in fairness, that’s also a pretty good description of actual toffee; there was at least a little bit of a faint burnt/browned flavor.

4. MEng

I kicked off my last year by finally getting my hands on Fourth of July Oreos, which are only sold during (obvs) July and which I’d struggled to find for several years. These are exciting because they have a different gimmick! There are little crunchy pieces, but they’re actually pop rocks and they pop in your mouth. The Oreos themselves tasted boring and crappy, but the pop rocks were actually super fun. They popped on a bit of a delay, which made for a fun aftertaste after eating the main Oreo. If the flavor was better, these would’ve been awesome.

Pumpkin Spice: another classic but time-limited option. I was unconsciously imagining pumpkin pie without realizing it and was a little apprehensive, but these taste like the spice rather than the pumpkin and were pretty good! They were strongly flavored enough that they actually felt fall-appropriate.

Neapolitan: These supposedly have neapolitan-ice-cream flavored creme and “waffle cone” flavored cookies. What is waffle cone flavor? Bland. I had expected the creme to be in stripes, but instead it was stacked, which meant the Oreo tasted super different depending on which direction you held it as you ate it. The vanilla mostly disappeared, but it was fun to be able to choose whether to eat a chocolate Oreo or a strawberry one. Both did an okay job of replicating ice cream flavors, but were, as always, much too sweet.

Brookie-O: In case you, like me, had never heard of a “brookie”, it is the combination of a brownie and a cookie. This makes sense as a treat that you could bake, but it does not really make sense as a flavor for an Oreo, which is already a cookie, to have. The package advertises that there are three stacked flavors of creme: “brownie, original, and cookie dough”. Like neapolitan, in practice this mostly means depending on how you hold the cookie, you’re eating a regular Oreo or a chocolate Oreo, both of which are fine but neither of which are very interesting. The chocolate one did have my fave little crunchy bits!

Snickerdoodle: A typical weird flavor – these mostly just tasted like sugar with a very faint hint of snickerdoodle (although in fairness, many actual snickerdoodles are also pretty faintly flavored). Extremely mediocre.

Blackout Cake: These were actually kind of cool — I had expected them to be a dupe of dark chocolate, but they genuinely did taste cakier somehow! Maybe the creme was softer? Not sure, but it was interesting. The flavor was more like regular chocolate than dark chocolate, and as always they were too sweet.

5. Overall Thoughts

Overall, to be honest, most of these flavors totally sucked. They were all super sweet and either tasted bland or weird. A few flavors made it to the point of “almost as good as the original Oreos, but I would never buy them instead of the original”; even fewer actually made it to “as good as the original or better”. Here’s my tier list:

S tier (better than regular Oreos): Oreo thins, double stuff, peppermint bark

A tier (equal to regular Oreos): regular Oreos, chocolate Oreos, pistachio thins

B tier (not as good as regular Oreos, but I would still buy and enjoy them): cinnamon bun, pumpkin spice, gingerbread

C tier (not good enough to buy, but I would eat them if offered): vanilla, chocolate marshmallow, dark chocolate, red velvet, chocolate hazelnut, Brookie-O

D tier (if I picked one up and took a bite, I would finish it, but reluctantly): chocolate peanut butter pie, mint, caramel coconut, toffee crunch, Fourth of July, Neapolitan, snickerdoodle, blackout cake

F tier (if I took a bite by mistake, I would throw out the rest): birthday cake, rocky road trip, coffee

I think if more care had been put into each of these flavors, Oreo could have done a much better job with most of them. But I guess they got my money anyway ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ And in any case, I had a ton of fun doing this project over the last few years. It was nice to have something that could take a backseat when I hosed, but that I could pick back up when I wanted to, bring up at parties, and laugh about with my friends. We’d dissect and diss on each flavor together and have a great time doing it. I regretfully admit that I will likely continue trying every new Oreo flavor I see at the store, despite knowing that they will probably not be very good. Who knows? Maybe years from now, when I share new Oreos with my new friends, I’ll think back to all the people I shared them with here.