Candy Blog

I found a new candy on eBay, they’re called Mentos Incredible Chew! and are available in Thailand and Australia (and probably other places). I picked up my packages on eBay from a Bangkok-based seller, so the packages are in Thai. 

Mentos new chews Incredible Chew! are more like Morinaga’s HiCHEW than Wrigley’s Starburst. The package are 45 grams and have 11 pieces of the same flavor. They boast no artificial colors, but I can’t say whether the flavorings are naturally derived. I did notice that the ingredients for the Australian version has gelatin in it, but this package and the Aussie version are Halal (so the gelatin is not from pigs). The three initial flavors are Strawberry, Grape and Green Apple.

Mentos Strawberry Incredible Chew! is layered, a white outer layer with a pink center. The flavor also might be layered, though it’s hard to tell. The flavor is less of a jammy strawberry and more like a strawberry yogurt. There’s a creamy note, a sweetness and some floral notes and actually two tangy notes, one is a little bit like goat milk or yogurt and the other tartness is more like citric acid. The effect of this whole thing is only okay. It’s not as vibrant as HiCHEW and it doesn’t have the interesting texture that Mentos have.

The texture is a smooth and bouncy chew, rather like latex. It’s kind of like a chewing gum at first, completely smooth and sweet and flavorful, and then eventually it disappears.

Grape Incredible Chew! comes in a mostly purple wrapper, with big, round purple grapes on it.The pieces are white with a medium purple interior. The flavor is definitely concord and not the American SweeTarts grape. It’s a juicy flavor that has a lot of the notes I associate with actual concord grape skins. It’s a little tangy, mostly sweet with a smooth chew that starts bouncy but stays smooth.

Of the three flavors, this was my favorite. It tasted clean and the flavor lasted through the texture changes as I chewed.

Mentos Green Apple Incredible Chew! wasn’t even a flavor I was interested in, but when I ordered on eBay, half the cost of the initial package was shipping, so throwing in an additional package was purely an efficiency decision. The center is the same light green as the apples on the wrapper. The flavor is a cross between American Jolly Rancher Green Apple and the more subtle Japanese apple flavor. It’s tangy, and has a long chew but it’s also very artificial, especially towards the end when the sweetness that gave it an apple juice note dissipates and it’s just artificial flavor after that.

Overall they’re a decent candy, I just don’t understand why anyone would buy these instead of Morinaga HiCHEW, which are available in far more flavors and have a much better flavor profile in my experience.

Related Candies

1. Short & Sweet: Mentos
2. HiCHEW Japan vs HiCHEW Taiwan
3. Festival HiCHEW: Candied Apple & Cotton Candy
4. Mamba Sours
5. Banana n Cream & Red Orange Mentos
6. Lotte Chew-Let - Pomegranate
7. HiCHEW Yuzu & Valencia

This nondescript little bag showed up in the Trader Joe’s new products showcase last week. The simple flat bottomed cellophane bag holds tricolor chocolate morsels called Magic Beans. They’re described as chocolate covered nougat beans.

I’ve come to understand that the word nougat really doesn’t mean much as a description. Here in the United States, depending on the initial inspiration of the confection, nougat can be a hazelnut paste, a nut toffee or a whipped sugar, honey and egg bar. In this case, the nougat is a very dark nut brittle.

These Magic Beans come from France, which also makes some stunning whipped egg nougat as well. So, I can see that some folks might be more confused than bewitched by these.

The beans are about the size of Trader Joe’s chocolate covered almonds, though actually kidney bean shaped. They come in three colors, a mottled white, a mottled green and a stand milk chocolate. The coating is a little bumpy on all of them.

Inside the milk chocolate coating is a nugget of almond toffee, or maybe it’s nut brittle, it’s hard to tell from the ingredients label. (They candies may contain traces of hazelnuts, chestnuts, pistachios and walnuts. They’re made with coconut, almonds, milk, soy and wheat.) The nuts themselves are little bits, not whole nuts, and the sugar crust holding them together is very toasted, almost burnt.

The milk chocolate coating is very milky, it has some decent cocoa notes, but for the most part it’s just creamy and sweet. This is a nice counterpoint to the roasted and slightly bitter note of the crunchy center. They reminded me a little bit of the sesame snaps that I pick up at the health food stores.

If you go into these expecting something more like Nutella bites or Charleston Chews, you’re going to be disappointed. These are quite different from other nutty items, so that unique selling proposition is what got me. They’re not magic, but quite enjoyable.

As a side note, I bought something very similar earlier this year in New York City at Eataly. The food mall has an amazing selection of Italian chocolates and sweets, including one of the largest selections of Venchi I think I’ve ever seen outside of Europe.

This is called Venchi Nougatine and are pretty much the same thing as the Trader Joe’s Magic Beans, except they’re made in Italy and covered in 60% dark chocolate. This package of less than 2 ounces was actually the same price as the Magic Beans (7.2 ounces).

Related Candies

1. Lindt Hello Crunchy Nougat
2. Trader Joe’s Chocolate Covered Sea Salt Butterscotch Caramels
3. Trader Joe’s Holiday Roundup 2012
4. Trader Joe’s Almondictive Bits
5. Choceur Nougat Bites & Marzipan Bites
6. Fard’s Persian Pistachio Nougat
7. Valerie Lemon Hazelnut Nougat
8. Nougat de Montelimar

In this episode Maria and I host our first guests on the show, the crew from Let’s Talk TJ’s (Nathan, Sonia and Russ, who also run What’s Good at Trader Joe’s). We chat about the wide world of Trader Joe’s house branded candies.

Download directly and of course check out our complete show notes with links to many of the products we mention.

Brach’s has a few new versions of their classic Candy Corn this year, in addition to the return of Apple Pie, Pumpkin Pie and Caramel Macchiatto. The Brach’s Sea Salt Chocolate Candy Corn says it’s made with real honey and comes from the same factory in Mexico that makes all the other Brach’s candy corn.

The image on the front of the bag shows what looks like chocolate truffles coated with far more salt than anyone should be eating. The good news is that it’s just an artistic representation, it’s there’s not that much salt on them and certainly none that’s visible.

Brach’s classic candy corn has 70 mg of sodium per serving of 19 pieces. The Sea Salt Chocolate version has 95 mg of sodium. The ingredients label lists both regular salt and sea salt as ingredients. The sea salt, which is the defining feature that the product leads with is way down at the end of the list after the first salt, after the palm kernel oil, after the natural and artificial colors and some extra dextrose. The only items lower on the list are gelatin, honey and the artificial colors plus sesame oil and soy lecithin.

So, back to that picture on the front of the bag, it took me a little while of eating the pieces in layers to realize that the picture is actually a code for the candy.

The base layer is sweet, though a little less sweet than a standard candy corn fondant. There’s a light cocoa note, like that feeling that you get when you go into the kitchen and realize that someone left a package of hot cocoa mix open. The next layer, the middle one, is pretty much the same, expect I think I caught some fake butter notes. Then the white top layer is not that “bland white tip of the candy corn flavor”, instead it’s actually salty. There are actually little crunchy bits of salt in there.

The whole thing tastes every so slightly less sweet than standard orange and yellow candy corn, but not actually chocolatey. It’s missing the honey notes and the weird butter flavoring really didn’t belong at all.

Of the recent novelty flavors, I think the Caramel Macchiatto was my favorite, but I’d love them to try an espresso or maybe affogato. This one seemed a little too late for the trend and not well executed.

Related Candies

1. Brach’s Peanut Butter Cup Candy Corn
2. Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Pumpkin Spice Salted Caramels
3. Brach’s Caramel Macchiato Candy Corn
4. Charms Candy Corn Pops
5. Theo Salted Almond Dark Chocolate
6. Toblerone Crunchy Salted Almond

Il Morso, which means the bite in Italian, is a new, solid form of coffee. Though the concept of coffee being treated like chocolate is hardly new, it’s very rarely implemented. Il Morso not only attempts to make a solid coffee/chocolate hybrid, by using cocoa butter with coffee beans, but they’re doing it with all natural ingredients and far less sugar than others who have come before them.

There are three different little bites in their current line: Americano, Coffee & Cream and Mocha. They also make a Matcha version with green tea instead of coffee. They use organic ingredients, no emulsifiers and pure cane sugar.

I tried Il Morso at the Fancy Food Show, before they were selling at retail. Now they’re available in limited stores and on the web. The company sent me this sampler box so that I could try all the flavors.

An Americano is espresso with a little water in it, to create the same consistency as a standard drip coffee. The Americano Coffee Bar is actually quite simple when it comes to ingredients, just three of them: Espresso Beans, Cocoa Butter and Cane Sugar.

Each little bite of the Americano Coffee Bar, the most intense coffee bar they make, has about 18 mg of caffeine. They’re also only 20 calories, partly because they’re so small (4 grams) but don’t be fooled because there’s no milk in there, there’s still plenty of fat from the cocoa butter (not a bad thing).

The bar smells like coffee, like coffee grounds, not quite like brewed coffee or espresso. It’s woodsy and deep with toffee and charcoal notes. The bite is easy, this is very similar in texture to a chocolate bar. The melt is easy and fast, but not too slick. There’s a slight chalky texture, like that sludge at the bottom of a cup of coffee, but this is by far the smoothest coffee item I’ve had. The sweetness is there from the sugar, but it’s very clean and just enough to moderate the more intense bitterness from the coffee.

Though it’s a small square, it’s quite intense and I don’t feel like I would ever want a full bar of this.

The Coffee & Cream Bar comes in at 16 mg of caffeine and 25 calories. This one contains milk powder in addition to the coffee, cocoa butter and sugar. You can see from the picture though, this is not milk chocolate, it is still very intensely coffee, but the milk is there to bring a more mild note to the bar without adding more sugar.

It’s funny that it does not smell as strongly of coffee as the Americano. It tastes, though, really much the same. The bitterness, the sort of acidic note of strong coffee, that’s all there, but it’s just slightly milder. It’s also smoother and has a lighter finish to it.

The Mocha Bar is the same as Coffee & Cream with the addition of some 70% chocolate. Sometimes I feel like chocolate bars with coffee in them are just that, chocolate bars first. Here, this is fully a coffee bar with chocolate in there. This one comes in with only 15 calories and 14 mg of caffeine.

This bar is absolutely the smoothest. It’s also the least sweet, if that’s possible. The coffee notes are most forward and the least bitter of the three bars, but no less rounded with the toffee and roasted notes. The chocolate is a smooth background with a hint of brownies and bananas.

The final bar is not coffee but all, it’s their only Tea Bar, the Matcha Tea Bar. This one has four ingredients: matcha, cocoa butter, milk powder and sugar. It’s also 20 calories but has only 7 mg of caffeine.

It’s quite green and smells like grass clippings, pistachios, jasmine and tea. The texture is smooth, but the whole effect of the tea is a little perfumey and soapy. There’s bit of bitterness that comes out after the cocoa butter and milk has dissipated. The floral notes linger long after the bar is gone, so it’s much fresher feeling than the coffee bars.

Overall, I think these are fantastic. I love the intensity of the bites, though they feel less like candy and more like a snack because there’s so little sugar in them. I’m also glad they’re so satisfying, I never feel the need to eat more than two at a time, because I wouldn’t want to over consume caffeine, especially late in the day. It’s a great option for travelers as well, if you need a little boost. They don’t seem to have the same problems with cocoa butter bloom as chocolate does, or at least the few that I traveled with melted and reformed pretty well. 

The packaging is lovely and has a lot of information packed on to the little squares, which I appreciate. I don’t see myself buying these often by the box, but they would make great favors or gifts for those who truly love coffee. If I could find a candy shop that has them by the piece, I’d be willing to pay $1.75 each for them ... based on how big they taste, not how big they are.

There’s no statement about nuts or other allergens on the packaging. These are very pricey, though premium coffee drinks are also pricey and these are just more portable.

Related Candies

1. Ritter Sport Coffee and Hazelnuts (Winter Edition)
2. Good and DeLISH Morning Rush Coffee Bites
3. Mast Brothers Stumptown Coffee
4. Meiji Corot & CoffeeBeat
5. Espresso Filled Dark Chocolate
6. Javaz - Milk & Dark Chocolate Covered Coffee Beans
7. Hanahiyori - Green Tea White Chocolates