Trader Joe's Fire Roasted Tomato Cranberry Salsa

Trader Joe's Fire Roasted Tomato Salsa remains my favorite--the one I would pick if I could eat only one commercial salsa for the rest of my life. So when I saw on TJ's web site the announcement of a product that sounds like that with added cranberry, I really wanted to try it. It sounds like it should be, at least, interesting, and possibly great.

It is not.

I scooped some up on a TJ's Organic Corn Chip Dipper and popped it in my mouth. "That's weird," I said to Nina. She tried the same thing, and said, "That's weird."

The terrible mistake they made was overly sweetening it. This results in a completely absence of cranberry tartness--which is what should make this interesting. Worse, it ruins the salsa base. Sweetness should not be the first taste sensation you get from a salsa, but here it's so heavy that that's the result.

TJ's says that this is "like cranberry relish." I suppose that's true, but then why sell it as salsa instead of as cranberry relish?


Will I buy it again? 

Not a chance. I ate five or six chips dipped in it, then couldn't stand the thought of even one more. Nina gave up even faster than that. This is going back to the store for an extremely disappointed refund.