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8-Tasty

Monday, September 12, 2016

Hot Tamales Licorice Bites

DSC_0713tbHot Tamales are a simple candy, they’re just cinnamon flavored jelly beans, in a long rod shape. Cinnamon candies aren’t always easy to find, so it’s nice that they’re pretty cheap, too.

The newest brand extension for Hot Tamales, made by Just Born (the company that also makes Peeps and Mike and Ike) are Hot Tamales Licorice Bites. The concept of cinnamon flavored licorice is not new, Twizzlers has had them on and off over the years, and smaller companies like Kenny’s Licorice have also sold cinnamon licorice twists. However, as far as I know, Hot Tamales Licorice Bites are the only cinnamon licorice in stores now.

Since they came out, I’ve picked up three bags. So, consider this your review spoiler that I like these.

DSC_0755rb

The format is very simple, they’re little licorice nibs, like stubby slices of thick licorice twists. There’s a little hole in the center.

The texture is very similar to Twizzlers. It’s’ rubbery and crumbly and not really like anything considered food.

The cinnamon flavor is pleasantly warm with a little sizzle to it at times, like a zap from a static charge. They do tend to stick my teeth ... and the smell of them will contaminate any other food stuffs nearby. But I found them rather addictive. They’re not terribly sweet (in fact there’s 100 mg of sodium in each serving) and since they’re made from wheat flour, they’re also a bit more satisfying than straight sugar candy like the regular Hot Tamales.

These are a nice addition to the Hot Tamales line, similarly easy to eat and share. I hope they stick around.

Related Candies

  1. Hot Tamales 3 Alarm
  2. Mentos Cinnamon
  3. Good & Fiery
  4. See’s Cinnamon (Hearts & Lollypops)
  5. Cinnamon Fire Twizzlers
  6. Chewy Lemonheads & Atomic Fireballs
  7. Hot Tamales and Hotter Tamales


Name: Hot Tamales Licorice Bites
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Just Born
Place Purchased: Target (Glendale)
Price: $1.89
Size: 8 ounces
Calories per ounce: 113
Categories: Candy, Just Born, Cinnamon, 8-Tasty, United States, Target

POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:21 pm     CandyReviewJust BornChewsCinnamon8-TastyUnited StatesTarget

Wednesday, September 7, 2016

HiCHEW Sours

DSC_0710rbHiCHEW are strange little candies from Japan made by Morinaga. They’re vibrantly flavored chews with a latexy texture.

HiCHEW have become popular around the world since their introduction in 1975, they’re produced in several countries, including a new factory in the United States. Morinaga introduced HiCHEW Sours earlier this year. I had a hard time finding them in stores, though plenty of the shops near me carry the regular mixes (tropical, fruits and all strawberry) including Target and 7-11. Eventually I tracked them down in Little Tokyo at a store called Daiso, which is kind of like a dollar store, except most things are a dollar fifty.

Currently HiCHEW Sours come in the format of individually sealed pieces in bags (not wrapped bars). The packages include random ratios of Lemon, Grapefruit and Lime. (I assume they’re random because I bought two bags and got far more lime in one bag than another.)

Usually when I get a flavor mix, I find that I don’t like a fair fraction of the flavors. There are only three in this mix, but they’re all citrus flavors, so that’s an exceptionally promising start. It’s also refreshing to see the flavor lime being introduced in this day and age when apple is so usually favored.

DSC_0767tb

I’ll start with the star: Grapefruit. This citrus flavor is no stranger to Japanese candies, as it appears quite commonly in candies. These are packaged in pink, and like the regular HiCHEW these are two colors. This is inverted though for the sours. The outside is colored and the inside is white. The immediate scent is zesty and the flavor is both tangy and bitter. The texture of the Grapefruit starts our similar to the traditional HiCHEW, rather smooth. But it quickly becomes grainy though still very chewy with a flavor that lasts until it dissolves.

DSC_0769rbLemon smells exactly like Country Time Lemonade. It’s slightly tinny, quite tart and less zesty than I would prefer.

The Lime is a rather strange green, light and minty looking. The flavor itself is a weird throwback. It tastes like the seventies to me, though I can’t put my finger on why. The limeade flavor is similar to the Lemon, but there’s more zest to it, though not the same type of bitterness that the Grapefruit had.

I enjoyed all three flavors and really didn’t care by the time I got to the second bag what flavor I picked out. They were all tart enough to get my taste buds tingly, but not so acidic to blister my tongue after eating ten or so.

It might be my imagination, but I feel like the chew doesn’t last as long for the sours. It could be that the sourness makes more saliva, so they dissolve quicker. But one of the great features of HiCHEW is that it’s almost like gum, the bouncy, latexy chew lasts a long time and the flavor never declines. These hold their flavor to the very end, but the texture is just not the same. Not a bad thing, just not the same thing.

Related Candies

  1. Skittles replace Lime with Green Apple
  2. Morinaga HiCHEW Fanta: Grape & Orange plus Cola
  3. HiCHEW Japan vs HiCHEW Taiwan
  4. Dots Sour Slices - Pink Grapefruit
  5. Festival HiCHEW: Candied Apple & Cotton Candy
  6. HiCHEW Yuzu & Valencia
  7. HiCHEW Grapefruit
  8. Pink Grapefruit Mentos


Name: HiCHEW Sours
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Morinaga
Place Purchased: Daiso Market (Little Tokyo)
Price: $1.50
Size: 3.17 ounces
Calories per ounce: 113
Categories: Candy, HiCHEW, Morinaga, Chews, Sour, 8-Tasty, Taiwan

POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:00 pm     CandyHiCHEWReviewMorinagaChewsSour8-TastyChina

Monday, March 21, 2016

Nestle KitKat Premium Hazelnut (Japan)

KitKat Premium HazelnutNestle is still churning out plenty of limited edition and seasonal flavors of KitKats in Japan, though I don’t acquire them as much as I used to.

This new version, sold in bags of minis, is called KitKat Premium Hazelnut. Japanese confectionery has a successful track record of adapting French techniques and flavors for the Japanese market, so I was very interested to see how the global Nestle corporation did in this version.

The little minis are quite small. It’s not just a shorter, half sized version of the standard four fingered bar. These are two inches long and 1.2 inches wide.

KitKat Premium Hazelnut

The flavor is called hazelnut, but what’s most interesting about the picture on the package, is that it features feuilletine along with some hazelnuts. Even if you don’t recognize the word feuilletine, you’ve probably had a version of it before. Think of a very crispy crepe, or the flaky layers of a sugar cone. It’s a caramelized sort of cookie that’s usually crumbled and added to other things, like chocolate ganache or cream centers.

The ingredients for this version of KitKat unfortunately show that this isn’t a true chocolate product, as many Nestle chocolate items tend to be these days. The chocolate coating includes vegetable oil, though a lot less sugar than the usual chocolate coating, so part of what gives this a premium feel is that it’s not as sickly sweet as the standard milk chocolate KitKat.

KitKat Premium Hazelnut

These little bars smell like sugar cones and roasted hazelnuts. It’s quite appealing. The chocolate coating is rather slick and has a little bit of an oily melt, but also a good roasted coffee and woodsy chocolate flavor. The center looks light and crispy, just like the usual wafer layers, but it has the precise flavor and texture of feuilletine. It’s a little grainy and as a more caramelized crunch to it. Magic. Still, the oily and slick mockolate coating lacks the complexity and texture of real chocolate. In this context, it seems to work on a candy level, but I wouldn’t dare call it premium.

They’re extremely satisfying, or not, because I actually wanted to eat the whole package. Sadly, the package only has 12 little bars (a single serving is listed as 3 bars). It’s an expensive treat and the ingredients don’t live up to the price. But the end result was too tasty to keep from giving it a solid review.

Related Candies

  1. Dove Hazelnut Crisp Dark Chocolate Promises
  2. Nestle KitKat Sakura Green Tea & Wasabi
  3. KitKat Hazelnut Cream
  4. KitKat Otonano Amasa (Adult Taste)
  5. KitKats: Royal Milk Tea, Ginger Ale, Bubbly Strawberry, Kinako Ohagi & Milk Coffee
  6. Eat with your Eyes: The Most Awesome Chocolate Bar Ever
  7. KitKat Temptations: Hazelnut & Coconut


Name: KitKat Premium Hazelnut
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Nestle
Place Purchased: Marukai Market (Little Tokyo)
Price: $5.99
Size: 4.8 ounces
Calories per ounce: 135
Categories: Candy, Nestle, Chocolate, Cookie, KitKat, Nuts, 8-Tasty, Japan

POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:37 pm     CandyReviewNestleChocolateCookieKitKatNuts8-TastyJapan

Monday, February 22, 2016

M&Ms White Strawberry Shortcake

DSC_0291rbEaster is a special time in the candy cycle, because it’s really the only time of year that white chocolate is embraced. Fortunately there are some products that are actually good, not just a white confection but actually made with real cocoa butter and lots of milk. (Many white confections are just sugar and tropical oils.)

The new White Strawberry Shortcake M&Ms are a Target exclusive this year, and if you’re a fan of the other white chocolate holiday versions like the Candy Corn M&Ms and the White Peppermint M&Ms, these may be just for you. 

DSC_0335rb

The pieces are larger than standard M&Ms, they’re puffier and a little less regular. They’re delicate pastel colors in pleasing creamy pink, eggshell and white, kind of like a strawberry shortcake with a whipped cream dollop. That’s about as far as the shortcake theme goes, which is fine with me. (The Dove Strawberry Shortcake Crisp things were weird.)

The package this year holds 8 ounces. Years ago the limited edition flavors came in a 9.9 ounce bag, they’re reliably shrinking over time.

DSC_0340rb

The pieces are uncolored in the center and not layered like some. The white chocolate is creamy and sweet and has the floral flavor of fresh strawberries. There are no dried strawberry bits in there, like some previous products have included.

The shell is crunchy and the center is sweet but balanced with the more milky flavors. There’s a lot of fat in there, from the cocoa butter, but they didn’t have a greasy texture. (But that could be that it’s kind of chilly, the Candy Corn version they make in the fall comes along when things are still warm in my area, and the cocoa butter can migrate through the shell in the heat. The flavor in this case reminds me quite a bit of the old Nestle Qwik strawberry milk.

I’m keen on these, but they push all my buttons. They’re pretty and not overly colored, they have a good flavor that’s not too artificial and the ingredients (though there are artificial colors and flavors) are petty decent. I hope they return next year with a wider release.

Related Candies

  1. Candyology 101 - Podcast Episode 30 - Valentines and Strawberry
  2. Dove Milk Chocolate Strawberry Shortcake Crisp Promises
  3. M&Ms White Chocolate Peppermint
  4. Meiji Corot - Strawberry Chocolate Drops
  5. M&Ms White Chocolate Candy Corn
  6. Whoppers Milkshake Strawberry
  7. KitKat Chocolatier (Strawberry & Green Tea)
  8. KitKat Tsubu Ichigo and Hershey’s Strawberries ‘n’ Creme


Name: White Strawberry Shortcake M&Ms
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Mars
Place Purchased: Target (Eagle Rock)
Price: $3.49
Size: 8 ounces
Calories per ounce: 148
Categories: Candy, Easter, Mars, Kosher, M&Ms, White Chocolate, 8-Tasty, United States, Target

POSTED BY Cybele AT 11:54 am     CandyReviewEasterMarsKosherWhite Chocolate8-TastyUnited StatesTarget

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Ghiradelli Valentine’s Dark and Strawberry Squares

Ghiradelli Valentine's Dark & Strawberry SquaresThough strawberry is the hot flavor of the moment, Ghirardelli has been making these Limited Edition Valentine’s Dark & Strawberry Squares for a few years.

There’s not much of a description on the package, just that the squares are filled with strawberry filling. The filling appears to be made from sugar, high fructose corn syrup, palm oil and freeze dried strawberries and colored with fruit and vegetable juice (very vague). It also has some added TBHQ as a preservative. There’s no indication of the cacao content of the chocolate itself, but I’d guess it’s somewhere in the low 60% range. Each square is 70 calories.

Ghiradelli Valentine's Dark & Strawberry Squares

The squares are elegant and simple. They’re 1.75 inches square and sport the Ghirardelli logo in a beveled field. In my experience the packaging protects the pieces well and they usually look stunningly gorgeous.

If there’s an issue with the filled squares from Ghirardelli is that they temper their chocolate to be very crisp and snappy ... so the filled pieces can be messy to eat when the chocolate breaks apart upon biting and the filling dribbles out. So, make an effort to bite on the diagonal, or pop the whole thing in your mouth at once.

Ghiradelli Valentine's Dark & Strawberry Squares

The chocolate is sweet but with a nice dry woodsy note to it, which goes well with the strawberry flavors. The strawberry filling is quite like a finely pureed strawberry sauce. It’s not overly sweet, has a strong tangy note and just a touch of seed flavor to it (and some actual seeds).

Because the edges are so thick and the chocolate in the center is so thin, there’s a large variation in the proportion of filling to chocolate in any given bite.

I liked them quite a bit, it was the best imitation of a chocolate covered strawberry that doesn’t spoil that I think I’ve had. Ghirardelli Strawberry Squares contain soy and milk and may also contain traces of tree nuts. There’s no statement about gluten.

Related Candies

  1. Dove Milk Chocolate Strawberry Shortcake Crisp Promises
  2. Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate Cranberry
  3. Ghirardelli Intense Dark Sea Salt Soiree
  4. Jelly Belly Chocolate Dips
  5. Ferrara Chocolate Strawberry
  6. Ghirardelli Holiday Squares
  7. 3 Musketeers Mini Mix
  8. Rice Milk Chocolate Bars
  9. KitKat Tsubu Ichigo and Hershey’s Strawberries ‘n’ Creme


Name: Valentine’s Dark and Strawberry Squares
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Ghiradelli
Place Purchased: Target (Eagle Rock)
Price: $3.50
Size: 6.38 ounces
Calories per ounce: 148
Categories: Candy, Valentines, Ghirardelli, Chocolate, Kosher, 8-Tasty, United States, Target

POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:42 pm     CandyReviewValentinesGhirardelliChocolateKosherLimited Edition8-TastyUnited StatesTarget

Monday, January 4, 2016

Wild Ophelia Caramelized Bananas Peanut Butter Cups

Wild Ophelia Caramelized Bananas Peanut Butter CupsEarly last year at the Fancy Food Show in San Francisco, I tried a new line of chocolate cups from the confectioners at Vosges. These sets of mini peanut butter cups are from the Wild Ophelia line of chocolates and come in a few varieties. The first one I picked up at the store, when I finally found them last month at Whole Foods are the Wild Ophelia Caramelized Bananas Peanut Butter Cups.

The packages look like a regular twin set of chocolate cups (though they’re actually 2.1 ounces) but inside is actually a try that holds a set of six little cups.

Wild Ophelia Caramelized Bananas Peanut Butter Cups

I call them cups, but there’s actually no paper fluting on them, just the cups on a tray inside a wrapper.

The cups are made from 41% cacao milk chocolate, which is from fair trade certified beans (the sugar is also fair trade). The bananas are not the typical Cavendish most of us eat, but a varietal grown on Kauai known as Williams. The bananas are actually caramelized with some cream and sugar and sprinkled on top of the cups. The filling is peanut butter, and as far as I can tell, more chocolate.

Wild Ophelia Caramelized Bananas Peanut Butter Cups

They’re almost savory. The milk chocolate has a good dairy flavor without tasting like powdered milk. The melt is smooth and buttery with a little toffee note. Once I bit into the cups the peanut butter is pretty evident as a scent, but the texture of the peanut butter is barely there, it’s quite smooth and mixed in. The banana notes were hard to tease out sometimes, it wasn’t a lot of banana and often just a little fresh caramelized and honey note.

Some cups had more banana bits, and some of the banana bits were a little toothsticky.

I liked the cups better than the bar version that I tired a few years ago. Part of is that I like the format of cups, and the ability to have a teensy but full-featured portion. They’re expensive, but the package holds more than a Justin’s or Theo PB cup, though it’s still more per ounce. I liked the inventive combinations and I welcome more products that play with these formats.

Related Candies

  1. Chocolate Covered Banana Gummi Bears
  2. Bonomo Taffy Nibbles: Vanilla and Banana
  3. Wild Ophelia Milk Chocolate Bar Peanut Butter & Banana
  4. Ice Cream Flavored Dippin’ Candy - Banana Split
  5. Dove Desserts Bananas Foster
  6. Circus Peanuts
  7. Elvis Reese’s Peanut Butter and Banana Cup


Name: Caramelized Bananas Peanut Butter Cups
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Vosges Haut-Chocolat
Place Purchased: Whole Foods (Park LaBrea)
Price: $2.99
Size: 2.1 ounces
Calories per ounce: 149
Categories: All Natural, Candy, Vosges, Chocolate, Ethically Sourced, Peanuts, 8-Tasty, United States, Whole Foods

POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:29 pm     All NaturalCandyReviewVosgesChocolateEthically SourcedPeanuts8-TastyUnited StatesWhole Foods

Monday, December 14, 2015

Trader Joe’s Chocolate Marbles

DSC_0125rbTrader Joe’s often has the most wonderful seasonal confections. They’re often reasonably priced and unique items that are hard to find anywhere else. Many of the items at Trader Joe’s for 2015 are returning from previous years, including their cordials, passport chocolate stacks and Belgian chocolates. The newest item that caught my eye are the Trader Joe’s Chocolate Marbles.

There’s nothing particularly wintery or holiday about them. They’re just chocolate spheres filled with different pralines. There are six varieties, each sphere is then given a mottled color coating to distinguish it from the others. There are ten marbles in the package. It’s just shy of 5 ounces, so each piece is about 4/10 of an ounce. The flavors are: caramel, coconut, praline & almond, and chocolate mousse. The description on the Trader Joe’s website goes like this:

Trader Joe’s Chocolate Marbles begin as two half-circle shells of chocolate. Each half is filled with a chocolate ganache or hazelnut praline, and then the two halves are molded together to form a circle. From here, the coating process begins, first covering the filled chocolate balls with a layer of chocolate to make them super spherical, then adding very thin layers of sugar crust, and finally, a fine layer of color, which is handled delicately and deliberately to create the marbled effect your eyes will behold. The shiny finish you see is the final result of a coating process that takes more than three hours to complete.

DSC_0146rb

Almond Praline (Green), Hazelnut Praline (Orange), Chocolate Mousse (Blue), Coconut (White), Caramel (Brown), Crispy Cookie (Yellow)

They’re about the same size as a Lindt Lindor Truffle, but really the similarities end there.

DSC_0169rb

The tray is wonderful for protecting the candies, but makes it devilishly hard to get them out, they’re tucked in there and I couldn’t quite grab a single. All I would end up doing is spinning it around in its little cup. However, once out, the slightly bumpy outside means that they’re not as rolly as some spherical chocolates. (Sixlets probably max out the scale at a 10 and these are probably about a 4 - they can sit on a flat surface but anything raked and they will go with gravity.)

BlueThe lovely medium blue marble is filled with Chocolate Mousse. The shell is dark chocolate with a milk chocolate filling. The filling is soft and creamy and definitely sweet. It’s light but I wouldn’t call it a mousse. The dark shell was different enough from the filling, but if I wasn’t told what this flavor was, I’m not sure I’d guess it. However, it’s quite different from the Lindor, it’s much more dense in flavor with less of that thin oily feel on the tongue.

The white marble is filled with a chocolate cream with Coconut. This was rather mainstream tasting, very pleasing for my American palette. This was the only one I was able to pick out by scent. The chocolate was sweet and the little crispy coconut bits did make it all pop a lot more than the more delicate praline pieces.

 

DSC_0180rbThe brown marble is filled with two half domes of Caramel. It tastes like a lot more chocolate on this one, but the caramel holds its own. The caramel is a bit more of the saucy side than chew. The flavor is quite deep, with scorched and burnt sugar notes particularly strong. There were also a lot of milk flavors, more than the other pieces, so that may have been part of the caramel.

I think this was my favorite of the assortment, because it was so different from most American and British caramels. The only drawback I noticed after the third or fourth piece was that the colorful coating was a little waxy and though it seals in the flavors and keeps them from melting if you hold them in your hand for a few minutes ... it’s a shellac and rather tastes like it.

DSC_0175rbThe yellow marble is filled with a Crispy Cookie praline. I was expecting this to be like a Speculoos, but it’s not a spiced cookie.

It’s a milk shell with a milk chocolate paste in the center and little cereal or cookie bits. It was a little malty and a little corny… when I say corny, I actually mean it tasted like corn nuts or polenta or something. It was not as sweet as some of the other milk chocolate pieces and definitely different.

DSC_0172rbGreen - Almond Praline has a darker chocolate shell, though I’m not sure if it’s full dark chocolate. It balanced the almond praline pretty well. It’s not marzipan, it’s more of an almond butter mixed with a touch of cocoa and sugar. It’s sticky and satisfying, but doesn’t have a strong jolt of almond flavor.

The orange marble is filled with Hazelnut Praline. This is quite sweet but has a very good roasted hazelnut flavor. The filling is more paste with a definite crystallized sugar grain to it. It doesn’t have the smooth melt of the mousse, so it’s a bit sticky. I thought the milk chocolate shell made it all too sweet, but the lingering toasted nut flavors really kept it from being cloying afterwards.

I think these are a great hostess gift, excellent for using as an accent to a dessert plate of holiday cookies, or tossing in a little dish with some snacks. The price, for the quality and unique appearance, is quite good.

These are made in France, is suspect by the same confectioner that made the Magic Beans. The ingredients look good, all natural things, even natural colorings They contain milk, wheat, hazelnut, almond, soy, coconut. May also contain traces of chestnut, pistachio, walnut and/or eggs.

Related Candies

  1. Ritter Sport Nut Crescent Cookie
  2. Trader Joe’s Magic Beans
  3. Godiva Chef Inspirations Flavors of the World
  4. Divine Milk Chocolate Praline Mini Eggs
  5. Pralines Leonidas


Name: Chocolate Marbles
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Trader Joe’s
Place Purchased: Trader Joe's (3rd & Fairfax)
Price: $4.99
Size: 4.95 ounces
Calories per ounce: 154
Categories: All Natural, Candy, Christmas, Trader Joe's, Caramel, Chocolate, Cookie, Nuts, 8-Tasty, France

POSTED BY Cybele AT 3:00 pm     All NaturalCandyReviewChristmasTrader Joe'sCaramelChocolateCookieNuts8-TastyFrance

Monday, December 7, 2015

M&Ms Cafe Mocha

M&Ms MochaTarget’s newest seasonal edition of M&Ms is a rather nonseasonal but welcome classic: M&Ms Milk Chocolate Cafe Mocha.

They’re far more expensive than regular M&Ms. At Target they were on sale 2 bags for $6, but the regular varieties were larger bags. Milk Chocolate M&Ms come in an 11.4 ounce bags. For Halloween picked up the Pumpkin Spice Latte in a 9.9 ounce bag. The same is true for the returning Peppermint White Chocolate M&Ms, they’re now in an 8 ounce bag.

M&Ms Mocha

They’re larger than standard M&Ms, basically puffier. If you eat them carefully by cleaving them in half you can tell that the milk chocolate center is created in two layers. It’s like they took a regular M&M and then gave it another chocolate coating and then a candy shell. I’m not sure why the Limited Edition flavors are all this shape, but they are. It’s interesting to note that the Walmart exclusive flavor of Hot Chocolate M&Ms does have a different center. I have to wonder if this is because the manufacturing process is re-purposed from the failed M&Ms Premiums line from 2008.

The shells are green or red. My bag contained mostly green, it was tough to find reds to populate the photos, they’re less than a third of the package. There’s no actual coffee listed in the ingredients.

M&Ms Mocha

They don’t smell like much in the bag, a little less like chocolate but not fully like coffee. The bite is not at all soft, the chocolate is a little chalky and fudgy. The melt gives off a lot of sweetness and a little note of bitterness at first as well as a good whiff of coffee. The chocolate is okay, not great but the bitterness of the coffee notes, the roasted and woodsy aspects kind of cover for the milk flavors. It’s not really a latte flavor, its more of a coffee with milk and cocoa. It might have been fun to see them try this with a dark chocolate, but I’m patient. This is their first try at coffee M&Ms since the Premiums line. (And there will be another version of coffee and peanuts next spring.)

Mars does a great job with their coffee flavors, it’s well rounded without too much of a fake flavor note to it (like some other buttery things they’ve done). I’d love to see these come back as a seasonal tradition, but at all stores. I’ll pick up more bags soon, just in case they don’t.

Related Candies

  1. Milk Chocolate M&Ms Pumpkin Spice Latte
  2. Russell Stover Big Bite Coffee
  3. Dove Mocha Latte & Dark Chocolate Swirl Promises
  4. Ritter Sport Coffee and Hazelnuts (Winter Edition)
  5. Lindt Hello Coffee Blast (Limited Edition)
  6. Meiji Corot & CoffeeBeat
  7. Javaz - Milk & Dark Chocolate Covered Coffee Beans
  8. M&Ms Premiums
  9. KitKat Mocha


Name: M&Ms Cafe Mocha
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Mars
Place Purchased: Target (Eagle Rock)
Price: $3.00
Size: 8 ounces
Calories per ounce: 142
Categories: Candy, Christmas, Mars, Chocolate, Coffee, M&Ms, 8-Tasty, United States, Target

POSTED BY Cybele AT 5:13 pm     CandyReviewChristmasMarsChocolateCoffeeM&Ms8-TastyUnited StatesTarget

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Meticulously photographed and documented reviews of candy from around the world. And the occasional other sweet adventures. Open your mouth, expand your mind.

 

 

 

 

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