Doritos Baja Fiery Mango Is A Collaboration We Didn't Need
We're not sure if a soda-inspired chip was all that necessary.
Doritos has teamed up with Mountain Dew to celebrate the 20th year of Baja Blast's existence, and the two brands have collaborated to create a limited-time soda-inspired chip flavor called Baja Fiery Mango. No, it's not exactly a Baja Blast-flavored Dorito, but rather one that's adjacent to the wildly popular Mountain Dew variety. In an email announcement sent to The Takeout, the chips are described as "spice-packed and tangy," but very little other information was offered in terms of its flavor. Is a soda-to-chip crossover something we really needed in our lives? I dug into the sample that Doritos sent me to find out.
How do the new Doritos Baja Fiery Mango Doritos taste?
The chips themselves have a sweet scent to them, and despite what we've come to expect from Mountain Dew's unnaturally vivid coloration, they're pretty tame looking, kind of a general shade of muted orange. For being called "fiery," they don't actually look terrifying.
As for the flavor, it's been a while since I've been immediately puzzled by the taste of a chip. As the "mango" in the name suggests, they are indeed sweet, but not in an appealing way. The Baja Fiery Mango Doritos do have an artificial mango aftertaste to them, but in this case, I don't exactly consider that a good thing.
The other detail is that although there's a tiny, slow burn to them, these Doritos aren't what I'd call spicy, which is a bummer. If you've been casually keeping up with food and beverages these days, you'll notice that the sweet-spicy (aka "swicy") thing continues to be a popular trend, but I can't quite describe this as an aggressive entry into that category. They're more sweet than anything, and that mango flavor gets to be off-putting quickly.
I realize that people really love mango salsa, but these Doritos don't capture that vibe. In fact, I'm not sure where a soda-inspired, mango salsa-adjacent chip fits into any category, not that it has to necessarily — it just doesn't carve out a deep enough space to warrant spending your own money on it.
If you're a sweet, spicy, and salty Doritos fan, I highly recommend you just stick with the Spicy Sweet Chili Doritos, which is one of my favorite chip flavors ever. Doritos really hit the nail on the head with those, because not only are they aggressively sweet in a good way, but that sugariness is balanced out with the strongly savory flavor of Spicy Sweet Chili's secret ingredient: soy sauce.
I know some of you out there will buy the Baja Fiery Mango Doritos anyway, which are available now at limited retailers. While the brand didn't provide me with the specific list of stores the chips are currently at, customers have reported finding them at Walmart and Kroger stores. Otherwise, you'll see the chips roll out nationwide starting on April 28, but you won't see me in line for them. I may not even be able to finish the bag I opened today.