Skittles Fizzl'd Fruits

I remember when I was a kid and Skittles first hit Australia.  It was a revelation to me, these tiny chewy candies bursting with flavour!  Up until then the closest thing that we had were Kool Fruits and they were both bigger and not as juicy.

My love affair with Skittles continued until my last year of highschool when the bastards took away the grape flavour, my favourite, and replaced it with blackcurrant (though it might also be blackberry, I haven't checked in awhile) then to add injury to insult they took away lime and replaced it with green apple!  WTF Mars Inc!  WTF!

Ahem, so upsets aside I still love Skittles, I refuse to eat the nasty Australian variety so instead I shop at Candy Time in Brisbane and buy a large box of American Skittles for $3.99 and thus balance is restored to the universe.

However on occasion Mars Inc decides to play freaky God-like games and brings out limited editions.  Which I love!!  I've tried many a freaky Skittles version over the years, most would get a rating of 1.  Seriously.  Fun times but let's not do that again.

Fizzl'd Fruits though!  Man!  They got something right with these ones.  They've got different flavours to the regular packs, featuring berry punch, melon berry, raspberry, strawberry, and wild cherry, all covered with a fizzy dusted coating.

Oooh, the fizzy coating!

They were all pretty much even covered with the fizzy powder and had a nice crunch to the exterior.  The interior had the usual expected Skittles chew and juicy flavour.  I liked most of the flavours, except the wild cherry and berry punch, nothing cherry flavoured tastes good to me and the berry punch was just... off.

Of the three I enjoyed, raspberry was the best, tangy and sweet and the fizzy coating paired perfectly!  Strawberry and melon berry were a tie after the raspberry, and honestly I did eat the other flavours just to get the fizzy coating.

The Final Verdict: 3 - I really debated whether to bump this up to a 4 because I did really enjoy them, it's just with two flavours I didn't like there's really only 3/5 of the packet I'm going to eat.  But seriously try these, especially if you like fizzoes.

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.

Interesting Japanese Candies

Weird Japanese Candy!

Honestly I know nothing about either of these candies, I can tell you that one is hard and the other chewy and they're both fruity but that's about it.

I was given them through Swap-bot and they are mega cute!  Both Hello Kitty branded, which I do love!

Bad sticky candies! Bad!

This one tasted of pineapple a bit, kinda of like tropical juice with extra pineapple in it.  There is a pineapple and I think a banana on the side of the tin, and lots of Japanese writing!  There is also the words 'lips candy' maybe that's the name?  Possibly?  Who knows, they were tasty but very sharp in flavour and they made my mouth hurt after eating a few.

What really bugged me was how a few days after opening we had a lot of rain and the sheer humidity made all the candies stick together in one big clump even though they had been dusted with sugar AND the container was closed.

Awww, Kitty has a friend.

The second one is a little cardboard box, again Hello Kitty themed with silver wrapped chewy candies inside.  There's also a Hello Kitty sticker, I think the idea is you collect the stickers.  Anyway the sweets are a mild yellowy colour and smell sweet.  They also taste fruity but they're much milder, it's not orange, it might be mango but I don't think so.  I think it's probably a fruit mix, it tastes like it has pineapple notes with a bit of lemon and a creamy taste, good though.

The Final Verdict: 2 - The flavours are vague, nothing stands out in a definite way and the tin of hard candies sticking together is a big boo-boo in my books when it comes to candy, it generally means the container doesn't seal correctly or firmly enough.

Hi Chew Purin

Mmmmmm..... Hi-Chewy goodness

More Hi Chew!  So in my previous post I discussed how much I enjoy Hi Chew, the tasty chewiness, the weirdness over whether it's a gum or a candy, it's crazy!

This packet was given to me by a friend, the lucky girl lives near a Japanese supermarket so has more readily accesible Hi Chew than I do.  It comes in a nice package, yellow and brown coloured but completely in Japanese!  I don't speak or read Japanese at all, so I'm guessing the flavour here.  I did find the flavour on the Morinaga website, but as it's embbed flash heavy I was unable to use my translation program to understand the website.  It was pretty though.

So based on some research and looking at the graphics on the packet I'm saying this is purin flavour!  Purin is a Japanese custard caramel dessert I imagine, and by Wikipedia's reports, that it's something like Creme Caramel or Flan.  Therefore before even trying a piece I was expecting a sweet caramelly chew which was fine by me.

Does anybody else gt really happy when they get exactly what they were expecting?  I sure do, which made this Hi Chew really nice.  It was sweet and it was caramelly without being sickly or overpowering.  What was a nice addition is little caramelised pieces of sugar, similar to the Toffee Apple and Cotton Candy I tried.  The flavour all round is very pleasant, it doesn't burst out and shout about itself but it also lacked the subtle tastiness of the Cotton Candy.  I was left perplexed, yet not disappointed.

The Final Verdict: 3 - I think it tasted to me like an element was missing, it was very similar to the Cotton Candy but just didn't hit that same mark and I can't even really say why.  If it had maybe a deeper caramel flavour or some richer buttery notes similar to toffee I think I'd be more satisfied.

Werther's Chocolate Eclair

Mmmmm, who likes caramel?  Who likes chocolate?  Together?  Yes, tasty!  These were all the thoughts running through my brain as I picked out the Werther's Chocolate Eclairs off the shelf at the supermarket.  Honestly I picked them up for a few reasons, the delicious chocolately caramelly experience I was being promised, the fact that it was a new product and it was on sale.  Yes that's right, my candy consumption is often dictated by what's on sale.  These only cost me $1.99 which I consider quite good given the price of chocolate and candy over here.

The packet was a good size for the price and felt reasonably full which was nice, the packet was annoyingly difficult to get into without my trusty kitchen scissors but maybe that's a positive as it stops certain family members getting into my candy.  Maybe.

Inside the toffees were invidiually wrapped, a big plus in my books.  Nothing like getting a hard or semi hard candy only to find that a teensy bit of moisture has gotten in and stuck the whole bunch together because they aren't wrapped individually.

Each little candy is about the size of a large pellet and the same sort of shape.  The wrapper was easy to remove, a little twist off style.  And then the deliciousness began, smooth soft yet chewy caramel with a chocolatey centre.  It's easy to eat these candies several ways, either sucking until part gave way to access the chocolate or biting straight through were my two favourites.

This type of candy will travel well and store well which is plus and each one is as uniformly the same as the others.

The Final Verdict: 4 -  I really like these, in fact I was in the same store a few days after first buying them and almost picked up another packet even though they weren't on sale.  Only thing that stopped me was Cadbury had new products out.  I know I will buy these again, and porbably soon.