The main teaching of karma is “what goes around comes around.”

Then how come Kashi’s new Dark Cocoa Karma shredded wheat cereal comes as a square, and not a round loop?

Looks like you really missed a chance to tie your tasty breakfast offerings into the cyclical nature of moral interchange, Kashi.

That’s okay. I’m willing to forgive your philosophical blunder if this exciting cereal actually tastes good. I say “exciting” because Dark Cocoa Karma is essentially the second ever cereal—after Chocolate Toast Crunch—to combine chocolate and cinnamon in the same bowl.

Time to pop on a DVD of My Name is Earl and find some cinnamon chocolate zen.

Every piece is standard Frosted Mini-Wheat size, but comes naked and lightly cinnamon-flecked. Like a shaved cat or a mole rat, these biscuits aren’t beautiful. But they have goodness in their hearts.

And by goodness, I mean the healthy dollop of cinnamon chocolate goo spread inside each piece. To get to it, you have to chomp through patchwork layers of boring—yet still pleasantly toasty brown—wheat that crunches loudly. The wheat crunches so loudly, in fact, that your annoyed neighbors may issue a noise complaint with the Karma Police.

That’s what that song was about, right?

Sure, the wheat would be better if it were frosted, but hey—I’m supposed to be growing up here, not reverting to a childlike state where my only knowledge of Hindu karmic principles comes from playing Dhalsim in Street Fighter II.

The filling makes up for the wheat’s dry nudity, though. Its texture is soft and squishy, providing a textural contrast to the tumbleweed it lives inside.

The taste, meanwhile, is revolutionary. While Chocolate Toast Crunch is a hyperactive onslaught of sweetened cocoa and cinnamon sugar, Kashi Dark Cocoa Karma is perfect for those who either:

A) Want a more sophisticated cinnamon chocolate experience, or

B) Are secretly two kids standing on each other’s shoulders inside a trench coat trying to act more adult so they can get into an R-rated movie.

Rather than being processed and faux chocolatey, this chocolate filling is rich and creamy, and it reminded me of melted chocolate soft serve ice cream. And rather than being sugar diluted, the cinnamon its blended with provides a welcome spicy tingle.

Together, it tastes like Kashi stuffed tasty Mexican chocolate into the center of every biscuit. I only wish there were more of this cinna-choco goo, because when eaten out of the box, each bite of Dark Cocoa Karma became a war of attrition fought between wheat and filling.

The real loser of this fight was my dry mouth, where my parched tastebuds soon banded together and cried out for milk.

Yep, they really do soak up milk that fast.

Milk makes this circle of karma go ’round. The wheat becomes bloated and sweet with absorbed milk, and the chocolate takes on the pleasant creaminess of cocoa butter—cocoa butter infused with a charming cinnamon burn, that is.

I’m quite impressed by Kashi’s Dark Cocoa Karma. I do most of my cereal eating at weird hours of the night—it’s not truly 3:00am until I’m eating Cocoa Puffs and reading old Eyewitness Books about medieval trebuchets—but Dark Cocoa Karma is the perfect companion for a morning cup of coffee.

Kashi tried something different with its cereal formula for this one, and despite the flavor-suffocating wheat layers around it, the cinnamon-chocolate center is sure to delight.

Now please start selling the filling by the jarful so I can eat it until I die and come back as a cocoa bean.

The Bowl: Kashi Dark Cocoa Karma

The Breakdown: Bland and dry wheat can fully drown out an innovative, chocolate-cinnamon center. “Melted chocolate soft serve core” should be the only 5 words you need.

The Bottom Line: 8 cereal civil wars out of 10