Mentos Rainbow and Cola

Rainbow Mentos

Mentos have been around for a while now, originally developed in the 1950's in the Netherlands they were originally available in only the minty flavour.  They were originally intended as a breath mint but the hard coating and soft chew proved popular so additional flavours have since been added.

Until recently only three were available in Australia, mint, spearmint, and fruit (strawberry, lemon and orange).  This changed rapidly about 12 months ago when limited edition rolls started cropping up and new permanent flavour rolls appeared.

Cola Mentos

Two of the new flavours recently added are Rainbow, available at all Woolworths service stations and starting to show up in other locations such as confectionery stores, and Cola which is available in all major supermarkets and service stations.

I saw the Rainbow roll at a service station as I was leaving and I was in a hurry so I didn't stop to get one.  I then spent the next two weeks searching every supermarket and candy store to try and find them.  I must have seen them early in the roll out phase because I finally caved and went back to the specific service station to get them, but now see the damn things everywhere!

Fruit images on the roll.

I like this roll because it's pretty!  The rainbow print along the packaging has some nice colours and graphics.  It also displays the flavours well, grape, strawberry, orange, watermelon, pineapple, raspberry and apple.  There's two of each in the package, which is a standard Mentos thing, 14 pieces to a roll.

The candies inside are just as pretty, pastel colours in a complete rainbow spectrum.  The flavours are reasonable as well, strawberry was as expected, as was the orange, due to having tasted them in the regular fruit roll.

Pastel candies.

Of the new flavours raspberry and watermelon were my favourites, both fresh realistic flavours.  Pineapple was good too, but acidic and sharp like real pineapple, green apple was a bit sickly but I'm not really a green apple fan.  The grape was puzzling, I expected it to taste like grape bubble gum that fakey sort of flavour (which I enjoy) but it was far more true to the fruit which threw me.

The Final Verdict: 3 - They were enjoyable and fun but there weren't enough really good flavours to grab me and make me want to buy it again.

Pastel brown candies.

The cola ones were interesting, the packet was as attractive but the candies inside were pleasantly pastel brown, sort of a tan colour, which doesn't normally attract me but for some reason I liked the look of these.

The taste was very true to cola, sweet with a slight bite to it.  Unlike the Hi-Chew there was no fizz sensation.  Like the packet of rainbow there were 14 candies in the roll in total.  While the cola roll was not as good looking as the rainbow I'd almost pick it as the favourite because of the consistency that I would eat all the candies in this roll.

The Final Verdict: 3 - These are tasty, I think I like them more than rainbow but probably not enough to choose it as my go to Mentos flavour, I'd still pick mint if I'm wanting Mentos.