Trader Joe's Peanut Butter Protein Granola

I love a good granola. It's not terribly good for you, but it sure tastes good. Trader Joe's has made some pretty nice granolas that I would definitely recommend. But sometimes you get mesmerized by packaging and bold lettering so much that you completely miss what is right in your face.  I saw "peanut butter granola" and missed "pea protein" completely. What's the deal with "pea protein" you say? It's a euphemism for VEGAN.*

*Sort of. Pea protein is definitely plant-based. But come to think of it, unless a granola is sweetened with honey, most of the time it's technically vegan, so the problem(s) here can't be blamed entirely on the fact that this granola is vegan, although A would label anything vegan as automatically less delicious. 

Anyway, given TJ's track record of decent to excellent granolas, I had pretty high expectations for this product before I realized pea protein was involved. Who doesn't love peanut butter? (I realize some people don't. Unless there's an allergy involved, I'm not sure I understand that..) And look at those bolded words - chunky, crunchy, clusters. That sounds like a party waiting to get into my mouth. 

The taste is exactly what the description says - peanut butter-y and peanut-y. But it doesn't taste like the peanut butter in like a dark chocolate peanut butter cup or a delicious peanut butter cookie. It's not particularly sweet. It's kinda bland actually and "natural tasting." For me, I don't love sweet things all that much so it doesn't bother me. I can just throw it in a sweetened yogurt to compensate, but I can't say that the peanut butter flavor is that amazing where the flavor alone is enough to make up for the textural issues. It has a puffy rice cereal texture - a la Quaker chewy bars. Personally, I had one too many of those bars growing up. Unless it's a rice crispy treat, I don't find that texture particularly pleasant. Compared to a normal granola crunch, a rice cereal texture doesn't have as definitive of a crunch. It has more "give" and takes more time to crunch through. And yes, I like that the peanuts add an additional crunch but it's not enough to make up for the pea protein subpar crunch. Normally I would welcome large clusters of granola, but considering that the pea protein kinda gives a less satisfying, halfhearted crunch, those large clusters are actually kinda burdensome to eat. Ugh. 

But what about the 11g of protein? Isn't that awesome? I think there are tastier, less cumbersome ways to get 11g of protein my friend. So at this point, I'm trying halfheartedly to finish an already stale bag of PBPG (stale because...I haven't really been looking forward to eating this). As good as the return policy is at TJ's, there's something too shameless about returning a half eaten, already stale bag of granola. $3.49 for a 12 oz bag. Consider yourself warned - this is thus far my least favorite TJ's granola. 

TL;DR: Trader Joe's Peanut Butter Protein Granola. Not quite cardboard or styrofoam. But perhaps biodegradable packing peanuts? 4 out of 10.