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September 2006

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

UHA Puccho

The Japanese have some strange candies and these have to be right up there at the top. Puccho are pretty popular and with good reason, they deliver just about everything. They have variety in both the experience and the range of flavors, great packaging, they’re inexpensive and of course you can share them easily.

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There was a wide variety of flavor combinations at the store and I was especially interested in the Cola one but wanted to stay away from the yogurt ones (I like yogurt, but not as a flavor).

The Cola (in the red package) was awesome. The little piece had white and brown stripes in the candy and every once in a while there was a little piece of cola flavored gummi or a nugget of sour foamy grains. The grains gave it a lemon-cola zap and the gummis gave the soft, Hi-CHEW-like taffy a little bump of longevity.

The second one is a bit more of a mystery. The English sticker on the label calls it Genki Drink, which didn’t really help me to narrow it down because I didn’t know what a Genki Drink is. A little time on Google and I knew EXACTLY what they are ... you’ve probably seen them before, those mysterious brown glass bottles by the checkout at the Asian markets and tea shops that claim to boost your mental acuity and, um, other things.

The saffron colored chews are similarly soft and have a tangy, lemon tea flavor to them but also a floral note that reminded me of violets. There are similar nuggets of white powder that release a little zap of fizz and tartness, but these seem to have a bitter bite to them. The little gummi bits linger and have a little fruity taste to them and help to scrub away any lingering taffy bits in the teeth (that’s how they’re described on the Puccho website).

I definitely found the Cola ones fun and practically addictive except for the later burps that the little fizzy bits seem to generate. The Genki, not so much, even though it probably has infusions of all sorts of healthy things (the only one I’m sure of is vitamin C). I’ll probably stick to my tried-and-true Hi-CHEW but the Cola ones are definitely compelling if I’m in a mood.

Interesting note: the motto for UHA Mikakuto is “Deliciousness is Gentleness”

Name: Puccho Cola & Genki Drink
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: UHA Mikakuto
Place Purchased: Mitsuwa Marketplace (Little Tokyo)
Price: $.99 each
Size: 1.76 ounces
Calories per ounce: 90
Categories: Chew, Sour, Gummi, Japan, UHA Mikakuto

POSTED BY Cybele AT 5:57 am    

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Endangered Species: Peanut Butter Brittle & Rice Crisp

The lovely folks at Endanged Species thought I should try more of their bars (well, so did the lovely Candy Blog readers in the comments section). They happily sent me a small selection to try, here are a couple of the milk chocolate bars.

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Milk Chocolate with Peanut Brittle - there’s an elephant on the package! I’m guessing because elephants like peanuts. The base of this bar is a very dark, rich milk chocolate with 52% cocoa content. In fact, it’s so chocolatey that the sugar (made from water-filtered beet sugar) is third on the list of ingredients instead of first in most milk chocolates. That’s not to say that the chocolate isn’t sweet, but it also has an intense creaminess to it that I’ve found very rare in other milk chocolates. The dairy component is quite rich but it doesn’t feel sticky.

Sprinkled in there are peanut brittle chips. They have a nice salty bite and crispness and add a good peanut crunch. I’d argue that it isn’t really peanut brittle but toffee, since it’s so buttery, but I don’t feel that argument much matters.

This is a fantastic bar that may convert some folks who say they don’t like milk chocolate because it’s too homogeneous tasting but it still retains its munchability. I ate the whole bar in a matter of two days. 9 out of 10.

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Milk Chocolate with Rice Crisp - this bar has a manatee on the front. I doubt manatees have a fondness for rice though as vegetarians I don’t imagine they’d be adverse to it. This bar contains the same dark 52% cocoa content milk chocolate. This bar has a slightly smokier taste to it, which I’m guessing is added by the crisped rice. The first third of the bar, I hated it. The crisped rice tasted bitter and burnt to me. But I thought maybe I just had a bad rice crisp or two. I waited a day and tried it again. The crisped rice still reminds me of those bits of barely popped popcorn that end up in the bottom of the bowl. Very toasted tasting and with a much denser crunch.

Though the second try was more successful, I just wasn’t keen on the rustic taste of the rice crisps. There weren’t enough of them to make it a really crunchy bar and the intense flavor they added didn’t thrill me. I’m a huge fan of grains and eat a lot of them (barley is my favorite, if you didn’t already know) but this just wasn’t my thing. 6 out of 10.

Endangered Species is now based in Indiana (they moved from Oregon last year) and the make ethically traded chocolate bars in a huge variety of flavor combinations. The cool part is that the commitment to the environment goes to all facets of the production and marketing. The packages are printed on recycled paper and with soy-based biodegradable inks. The 10% of all profits are donated to animal conservation causes. Each bar is branded with a different endangered animal and the inside of the wrapper has that animal’s story. There are often coupons as well and tips for making small changes in your life to lessen your impact on the environment.

Though the bars are all natural, these are not organic (though there are other bars in their repertoir that are). Some of the cocoa beans that they acquire are Fair Trade certified and others do not have the certification but are ethically traded. Their packaging and story helps them to appeal to kids moreso than other wholesome-branded chocolates.

Name: Milk Chocolate with Peanut Butter Brittle & Rice Crisp
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Endangered Species
Place Purchased: samples from Endangered Species
Price: $2.39 retail
Size: 3 ounces
Calories per ounce: 153
Categories: Chocolate, Cookie, Peanuts, Toffee, United States, Endangered Species, Kosher

POSTED BY Cybele AT 6:40 am    

Monday, September 11, 2006

Cadbury Dairy Milk Whispers

imageI’m not sure why they call these Whispers. They’re crunchy. Maybe it’s their delicate taste.

They’re just chocolate covered malted milk balls, but for some reason they don’t call them that in the UK (then again, we call them Whoppers here as a rather generic term). The other UK malt balls I’ve had are Malteasers.

I picked them up at Mel & Rose’s and hoped they were the best malted milk balls ever made. (A lot of the time I buy stuff hoping it’ll be okay. Sometimes I really go to town and wind myself up that I’ve found the perfect candy to be stranded on an island with.)

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Being a Cadbury product I expected some good chocolate. It was okay, the usual sweet and powdered milk tasting stuff but then again malted milk always tastes a bit like powdered milk anyway. The crispy centers were light and had a good hit of malt with a little bit of a dark salt note to it. The proportions were good, there was a nice amount of chocolate, but it wasn’t all about the chocolate, the shell was just there to protect the crispy center.

The chocolate wasn’t creamy enough for me, it had that shellac shell on it that just made it a little too waxy. If anyone’s keeping track, I think the best prepackaged malted milk balls I’ve tried so far are the Limited Edition Pop’ables ... other than that I like to pick up the bulk ones at the grocery store (Harmony brand).

These were manufactured in South Africa.

Name: Dairy Milk Whispers
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Cadbury
Place Purchased: Mel & Rose's
Price: $1.25
Size: 45 ounces
Calories per ounce: unknown
Categories: Chocolate, Malt, South Africa, Cadbury

POSTED BY Cybele AT 7:37 am    

Friday, September 8, 2006

Green & Black’s Espresso Chocolate

Coffee is one of my favorite flavors. I’ve been searching for the perfect coffee chocolate bar, so when Green & Black’s offered to send me some chocolate to try (including some bars I’d had trouble getting a hold of around here), I jumped at it.

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Green & Black’s basically offers two different formats for their chocolate, the big 3.5 ounce bars and these boxes of 27 little tablets. I really like the boxes because I can have just a little chocolate and save it for later or share it. But it’s a lot of packaging, too, so I’m torn.

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Unlike other coffee infused bars that use whole beans to flavor the chocolate, Green & Black’s doesn’t have discernible grounds in the chocolate. Here’s what the package says:

To get the ultimate smooth dark espresso chocolate we’ve taken fresh organic espresso coffee and ground it until the coffee grains can no longer be felt on the tongue. Combining this with our dark chocolate gives the sensation of a strong espresso hit followed by the intense bittersweet chocolate flavors.

Thank goodness someone realized that I don’t want coffee grounds in my chocolate!

The overwhelming scent of these little pieces is coffee, strong black coffee. On the tongue the chocolate melts readily with no graininess but some bitter notes of espresso with flavors of licorice and sandalwood apparent as well. Just as advertised on the package the chocolate flavors emerge later as a support for the espresso, kind of like cream does in your coffee.

It’s not for the faint of heart, this is high octane stuff and I imagine there’s a good hit of caffeine in there, too. I’ve had to be careful not to eat them too late in the day lest they keep me up. I enjoyed it but the price for the box of tablets is a bit up there, for a better value grab the 3.5 ounce bar at Target (here in LA they’re selling them at Ralph’s now).

If you’re a reader from the UK, be sure to check their site for current competitions to win chocolate prizes.

UPDATE: I grabbed the retail price from Chocosphere, which as them at $13.99 a box. If you find it in stores it should be $8.99.

Name: Organic Espresso Dark Chocolate Squares
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Green & Black's
Place Purchased: sample from Green & Black's
Price: ~$13.95 $8.99 msrp
Size: 4.2 ounces
Calories per ounce: 157
Categories: Chocolate, Coffee, Italy, Green and Black's, Organic

POSTED BY Cybele AT 6:11 am    

Thursday, September 7, 2006

Legends in Candy Pass Away

There have been a few deaths in the news lately, and a couple of them are candy related.

First, Nathan Sloane of Charleston Chew died at the age of 97 last month. Though he didn’t invent the Charleston Chew, he bought the company in 1957 and developed the other versions of the bar, including chocolate-chocolate and strawberry. He later sold the company in 1990 to Nabisco.

Read obituary at The Boston Globe.

And just yesterday Dorothy Harmsen who co-founded Jolly Rancher passed away at the age of 91. Hers is a charming tale of an accidental candy empire. She started making chocolates to offset the dip in ice cream sales in the cold Colorado winters. Their first breakout hit was the super-cinnamon Fire Stix. One of my favorites as a child. The family later sold the business to Hershey’s in 1996.

Rest in peace, Dorothy. Read full obituary at the New York Times.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 8:07 am     News

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