From Reese’s Pieces to Ben & Jerry’s Peace Pops and Swedish Peacemärken, the idea of peace has brought us many delightful foods. Until Nabisco decides to release a line of “War-eo” double stuffed blood red sandwich cookies, I think the power of good will continue to dominate the snack aisle.

And the breakfast aisle, too, as the ever-healthy, organic, non-GMO (and all that jazz) Peace Cereal continues to produce innovative new flavor varieties. I’ve been meaning to try Peace Cereal for a long time, but the brand is tragically difficult to find on shelves (try Whole Foods for your best bet).

But now that I have a box on hand, it’s time to bring peace to the galaxy—or at least my cereal bowl—by reviewing Peace Cereal’s Maple Buckwheat Hemp cereal.

The cheetah print flakes in this cereal are small. “How small are they” you and the audience of Match Game may ask? These Maple Buckwheat Hemp flakes are so small, normal Corn Flakes eat them for breakfast.

Despite their size, the flakes have a hearty crunch. When munching into a handful of Maple Buckwheat Hemp flakes, the three flavors in their name appear chronologically, rather than all at once.

A smooth, robust kiss of golden maple hits first. While other maple cereals like Waffle Crisp or French Toast Crunch are soaked to the core with sticky maple flavor, Maple Buckwheat Hemp merely has a mild glaze on each flake.

The maple flavor itself is also unique for a cereal. While Waffle Crisp and FTC have the tasty but obviously artificial buttery maple flavor of Mrs. Buttersworth or Log Cabin syrup, Maple Buckwheat Hemp has an authentically woodsy dark amber sweetness.

Once the maple flavor begins to fade, in comes buckwheat. If you’ve had buckwheat before, you know what this tastes like, but it’s hard to describe otherwise. Buckwheat is a bold, polarizing flavor. Slightly bitter, very grainy, with strong notes of yeast and hops: you’ll either love buckwheat in your cereal or hate it.

The most glorious moment of this cereal is the brief transition between maple and buckwheat when, for one fleeting moment, both flavors combine to make the cereal taste like a big buckwheat pancake that got frozen and shattered into a million tiny flakes. As a lifelong fan of buckwheat pancakes, this had me excitedly quivering more than Legolas.

But to paraphrase a famous Robert Frost poem: “Nothing golden and mapley can stay.” On the trail end of the buckwheat comes a finish of hemp. I have little experience with hemp seed flavoring, but in this cereal it is excessively bitter, nutty, herbal, and smoky (not necessarily in that order).

This sour surprise is like finding a leaf of kale at the bottom of a juicy, stacked burger (sorry, kale fans), and the bitterness from the hemp lingers long after the spoonful of flakes is swallowed.

Thankfully, the sweet, creamy goodness of milk can disguise the hemp without affecting the pleasant maple or buckwheat flavors. The longer you let the flakes absorb milk, the better it gets, too. Oh, and you know what makes it even better?

Drizzling more maple syrup on top, of course!

Like Buddy the Elf, I always have a bottle of the stuff ready for occasions like this. Even though I’ve seen my birth certificate, I’m still convinced my biological parents are a moose and a Canada Goose.

Peace Cereal’s Maple Buckwheat Hemp Supergrains cereal won’t be for everyone. If you:

a) Hate the taste of buckwheat

b) Don’t like milk on your cereal, or

c) Don’t keep a portable bottle of maple syrup up your sleeve

Then I would say to try this cereal at your own risk. But if you’re like me and enjoy sliding countless buckwheat flapjacks in your mouth like hoppy shuffleboard pucks, this cereal will make you happy.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go try baking these flakes into the middle of a giant buckwheat waffle. I hope I have my doctor on speed dial.

The Bowl: Maple Buckwheat Hemp Supergrains

The Breakdown: These nimble, crunchy flakes taste like little buckwheat pancakes with an herbal aftertaste that softens in milk. Depending on who you are, that sentence will either sound repulsive, revolutionary, or romantic (okay the last one is just me).

The Bottom Line: 8 pancakes frozen in carbonite out of 10

***Note: samples of this cereal were sent to me by Attune Foods***