Several times a week I browse eBay’s candy sellers’ section to see what sort of new products are out there. This is usually how I find out about new varieties of Mentos around the world. I spotted the Mentos Tutti Frutti a while back and have been trying to get a hold of them.

Tutti Frutti means “all fruits” in Italian and is a common dessert and ice cream flavor. This variety looks like it’s available in Europe and possibly Asia. This variety of Mentos is part of a new trend in the European releases made with all natural colors and flavorings.

The candies are the palest pink. They don’t smell like anything, but biting into them, there’s a lot of flavor. If you’re familiar with Juicyfruit gum, this will be a familiar flavor. It’s a combination of banana, apple and a touch of pineapple. It’s sweet and soft, like banana, with a sort of creamy note to it. But there’s also a light tangy hint like fresh apples or canned pineapple.

It’s an awful lot like a Skittles version of Juicyfruit gum. I like that it’s natural colors and flavors, there’s no weird bitterness or aftertastes. There’s a clean sweetness and soft of floral finish that’s not quite as breath-freshening as a mint, but still feels like I’ve had some jasmine tea or some other neutral drink.

There are quite a few other varieties of Mentos in Europe that we don’t have here in the United States. Kristian at CandyBrain.de was good enough to seek them out (some are sold only at gas stations):

I’ll have reviews later of the other versions: Mentos Mintensity, Mentos Incognito and Sour Rainbow Mentos. I feel like Mentos are stalled as a brand here in the United States. They’ve been spending more on their gum line than the mints and chews, so we rarely get to see the new flavors, even as limited editions here. As we become more global, it’s nice to experience the cultural crossover flavors at the local stores instead of having to pay the premium for eBay sellers or JBox. (I have some JBox candies on order.)

Of course it’s hard to do a review of a Tutti Frutti item and not include this: Little Richard singing Tutti Frutti.

Related Candies

1. Mentos: Ume, Honeyed Apple and Lemon Squash
2. Mentos Pina Colada & Mojito plus Mentos Duo
3. Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans by Jelly Belly
4. Mentos Mix Grape
5. Fresh Cola Mentos
6. Jelly Belly: Lollibeans
7. Short & Sweet: Gums
8. Dalandan & Juicy Ponkan Mentos
9. Pink Grapefruit Mentos

Bonomo Turkish Taffy is one of those great comeback stories in the candy world. The company is now bringing back one of its more obscure products, Bonomo Taffy Nibbles which were made briefly from 1966 to 1972, when the equipment used to make it was damaged in a flood and never repaired.

The revived version comes in two varieties, Vanilla and Banana. They are small bites of soft taffy covered in milk chocolate. Though they are an old product, the timing of their reintroduction coincides with the current trend of morselization, that is, making candy bite sized.

I heard they were coming back and had some samples earlier this summer, but found the packages I’m reviewing while on vacation last week in Pennsylvania. They’re a nicely sized portion of 1.5 ounces.

The Vanilla Taffy Nibbles are nicely formed and coated. They’re a bit like Milk Duds, except they’re made with real chocolate and instead of caramel, it’s a nougat-style taffy.

The chew is soft and a bit airier than the crack & chew bars. The flavor is mild, not quite the soft vanilla notes that I get from the taffy bars, but still a pleasant chew. There’s a faint whiff of amaretto or some other flavor in it. The chocolate is sweet and creamy without being too waxy or sticky. Overall, I found them fun to eat, though I’d probably prefer to mix them in with something else.

The Bonomo Banana Taffy Nibbles are pretty much everything I want in a banana candy. The chew is soft, the banana is light and though artificial it’s still satisfying and not too caustic. The chocolate is decent and the pieces are a great size with good proportions.

Bonomo’s Taffy Nibbles are what I always felt Charleston Chews should be. They reminded me of the Swedish candy called Polly, which is a little nugget of rum nougat covered in chocolate. Now that they’re back, I hope they become easier to find, because they do fit a wonderful niche in the candy world. They’re a great movie candy and I’d like to see more flavored centers and maybe some dark chocolate if they become popular.

The candies contain milk, eggs and soy as well as confectioners glaze (shellac) and are made on equipment that also processes peanuts, tree nuts and wheat.

Related Candies

1. Dewar’s Chews
2. Sockerbit Swedish Candy Selections
3. Bonomo & Doscher Banana Taffy
4. Bonomo’s Turkish Taffy - Chocolate, Vanilla & Strawberry
5. Mini Charleston Chews
6. Look! and Big Hunk
7. Doscher’s French Chew Taffy
8. Tootsie Roll Mini Chews

On my short vacation last month, I made on candy related detour on what was otherwise a cookie-fueled holiday. The Man and I swung through Bakersfield, CA to stop at Dewar’s Family Candy and Ice Cream Parlor.

I’ve tried Dewar’s Chews before, while on vacation I’ve picked them up at a candy shop in Cayucos. I was excited to go to their land or origin and try more of them. At the shop the outside temps were about 100, so I was eager to get our candy and stash it in the cooler in the back seat immediately. At the counter in the shop, which is mostly an ice cream parlor at their main location on Eye Street, the gal let me taste any variety I wanted. That was great, because I’d tried the five or six main flavors, but there were some interesting ones like Roasted Pecan and Chocolate Hazelnut that were of particular interest.

The taffy was $14.50 for a pound, which is a bit steep, but considering the fact that they use fresh local nuts and real dairy for the caramels, I thought it was worth it.

I chose: Pistachio Caramel, Peanut Butter, Almond, Pistachio, Roasted Pecan and Chocolate Hazelnut. I also got a 12 ounce box of the classic flavors to take to the office that included Peppermint.

All of the chews that I liked featured nuts. The plain caramel is good, don’t get me wrong, it’s smooth and soft and chewy. It’s not quite as decadent as some of the artisanal versions that are popping up, but they’re rich and dependable.

The Roasted Pecan was one of the few that featured lots of nuts mixed in. It’s a strongly vanilla taffy with pecans in it, that’s it. It’s great, a little salty, less sweet and satisfying with a maple and wood smoke finish.

The Chocolate Hazelnut was a bit sweeter, not terribly chocolatey but with a nice hint of hazelnut. It was one of my least favorite of the bunch, but I still ate all of them.

The Pistachio Caramel was just the caramel with some pieces of pistachio in it. Great.

The Peppermint is soft, it has a bit of a corn starch chalkiness on the outside, but the taffy is soft and chewy with a great, light mint flavor. Very clean, no graininess.

The exclusive or unique item though are their nut filled vanilla chews. They’re a plain vanilla taffy filled with ground nuts. The first one I tried was Peanut Butter, which is quite nice. I’m accustomed to a molasses chew with peanut butter, but this was much lighter, much more appropriate to summer. The vanilla taffy is soft and chewy, the peanut butter center is a bit grainy and quite salty without being sticky. The combination is really fantastic.

The Almond version is also very good, with a deep roasted flavor without the artificial almond extract that some might want to impose on it. The Pistachio was also very fresh tasting with only a hint of the green tea and floral notes of the pistachio nuts.

The most notable set though are the nut filled vanilla chews. There’s something about them that’s extremely enticing. They’re devilishly unsatisfying though, I would eat one, hoping that there’d be more nut filling and then eat another one, thinking that one would be the perfect ratio.

Dewar’s does a far better job of making a special taffy that’s worth taking home from vacation than any other candy shop I’ve seen. It’s good enough that I’ll likely make web orders in the future.

As a side note, the cookie part of my California Central Coast vacation was also great. The two great cookies of the Cayucos area are from the Brown Butter Cookie Company (I like their chocolate cookies, which are like buttery sand, they just fall apart in your mouth) and the Pecan Chews from Linn’s in Cambria which were like the toasty top of a pecan pie.

Related Candies

1. Mehlenbacher’s Taffy
2. Mary Jane & Mary Jane Wicked Mix
3. Bonomo’s Turkish Taffy - Chocolate, Vanilla & Strawberry
4. Nory Rahat Locum
5. Molasses Pops
6. Tootsie Rolls & Fruit Rolls
7. Doscher’s French Chew Taffy

It’s as if I’ve got a theme going with all these new products that are bite versions of the established candies. Today it’s a nibble from American Licorice’s popular Sour Punch line. These are Sour Punch Punchies and are described, simply as: soft,chewy, sour candy.

The two ounce bag has nuggets of candy coated wheat-based sour chews in five flavors: lemon, strawberry, tangerine, blue raspberry and green apple. They’re similar to the Chewy Sour Extinguisher that they released a few years ago, which had sour nuggets along with a magic one that would neutralize your ability to taste sour temporarily.

Sour Punch Straws and the later Sour Punch Bits are sour chews with a wheat flour base, like Red Vines. They usually have a sour sanding on the outside and a more intense flavor than a regular Red Vine. They’re devilishly messy, as the sanding tends to get everywhere. I also found that one straw was often more than I wanted as a portion. I like sours, but not in large quantities as age has finally taught me that too much sour is bad for my tongue if I’d like to use it for the following days.

The Sour Punch Punchies are have a core of Sour Punch Bits and then a candy coating similar to a jelly bean - it’s smooth on the outside but a little grainy and not crunchy. The colors are bold and very vivid.

Tangerine was the flavor I tried first, because it was bound to be good. The sourness was great but also had a nice hit of zest right away. The grain of the coating reminded me of Lemonheads, since there’s a bit of a “peel” effect with a sourness at the margin between the shell and center. The center is a little gummy and pasty and has a slight wheat flour note to it, as most of the Sour Punch products do.

Blue Raspberry is floral and seedy and sour. It’s very artificial at times, but an overall winner.

Lemon was right up there, again, bringing a lot of the qualities that I love about Lemonheads, but with more flavor in the center.

Strawberry was milder and like a smoothie in a way, not quite as sour but with a creamy note that the chew at the center brought in.

Green Apple was pure artificial in all the right ways. It tasted nothing like actual apples (as some candies will straddle the line) but more like Jolly Ranchers amped up. The sourness was not as strong as the lemon, which was by far the most intense.

There’s enough acid in there to burn my tongue before I finished the bag, I was able to eat less then half before I got a stomach ache. They’re really pretty to look at and I loved the flavor variety in the package better than the Airheads Bites (mostly because I like citrus and strawberry better than cherry and watermelon).

Wheat flour is a major ingredient, so they’re not gluten free. But there’s no gelatin but they do use confectioners glaze, so they’re not vegan. There’s also a lot more sodium in there, 170 mg, than I would have expected in a candy like this. They’re made in the USA and Kosher.

Related Candies

1. Natural Vines Strawberry
2. Sour Punch Bits - Tangerine-Lemonade
3. Grape Vines
4. Chewy Sour Extinguisher
5. Twizzlers Sweet & Sour Filled Twists
6. Red Vines
7. The Lemonhead & Fruit Heads
8. Airheads Xtreme Sour Belts

It seems like most of the new products I’ve been reviewing are new morsel versions of existing items. (I’m still trying to get the trademark of Morselization.) Today I have Airheads Bites from Perfetti Van Melle.

The category of candy known as Airheads has always been a bit of a curiosity for me. If you’ve never had them, they’re small, flat bars of tangy chew. They’re not taffy or a chew in the same sense as Starburst or Mentos. One of the main constituents is dextrose, which is the same stuff you find in SweeTarts. They really are just soft, chewy SweeTarts.

They come in watermelon, blue raspberry, cherry, orange, and lemon.

The ingredients are interesting:

Sugar, glucose syrup, maltodextrin, dextrose, hydrogenated coconut oil, and less than 2% of: citric acid, modified food starch, gelatin, sorbitol, artificial flavors, glycerol, carnauba wax, beeswax, shellac, gum arabic, red #40, yellow #5, yellow #6, blue #1

I had to wonder, after looking at them, what makes them different from Skittles or Starburst? Well, they just are.

The pieces are rounded and rather flat, so they don’t roll around. The coating is shiny but more like a jelly bean’s grainy sugar coating that’s polished than the crunchy sugar shell of a Skittle. The real difference here is the center. It’s pure Airhead. The chew is stiff and grainy but immediately flavorful.

Orange is sweet at first then very tangy and descends into a pleasant and consistent grain before dissolving quickly.

Watermelon is green and quite vibrant. Again, it starts sweet and then gets tart and slightly more artificial. They all dissolve away very quickly.

Blue Raspberry starts very floral and doesn’t get as sour as they others, but is more like a bubble gum flavor.

Lemon is yellow and is weird at first, with a strong household cleaner note that then becomes a rather standard lemonade mix flavor.

Cherry is quite normal and reminded me a lot of Life Savers. It reminded me that I’m getting to like cherry more than I did 10 years ago.

Overall, they are tasty little bits and far easier to eat than the ordinary Airheads bars. I liked the flavor diversity in the single package. I found mine at 7-11, so they’re out in stores now. They come in another version called Airheads Bites Berry.

I was sorry to see that these were not for vegetarians (gelatin). I was also a little surprised to see that they’re made in China, as the factory for Airheads is in Kentucky. Maybe they’re just trying out the product and will make them locally if they’re a hit. There was also no mention of allergens on the label, so I don’t know about gluten for those concerned.

Related Candies

1. Rowntrees Tooty Frooties
2. Airheads Pink Lemonade
3. Mentos Rainbow
4. 12 European Licorices
5. Chewy Sour Extinguisher
6. Head to Head: Chewy SweeTarts vs Chewy Tart n Tinys
7. Airheads
8. Airheads Xtreme Sour Belts

Last month at the Sweets & Snacks Expo, Wrigley’s showed off their new Starburst Minis. They were kind enough to send me some samples of the new version which should be hitting stores this month.

As you would expect from the name, they’re mini versions of the regular Starburst chews. They’re also unwrapped. (Some folks who make chains from the wrappers will not find this to be a selling point.) The flavors are the same as the Original packages: orange, lemon, cherry and strawberry.

A wrapped Starburst is .75 inches square and approximately .33 inches high. Each is approximately 5 grams. The new Minis are slightly more than .5 inches square, though the sides are not straight, they’re pinched and are .25 inches high. So my calculations show that they’re about one third the size.

What’s more interesting is the ingredients list. Starburst contain gelatin. So, they’re off limits to vegetarians and have never been Kosher/Halal to my knowledge.

Starburst Minis do not contain gelatin. They use pectin, which is derived from vegetable/fruit sources. In addition to the artificial colors, the other ingredient of concern to some folks would be the use of confectioners glaze, which has shellac in it. Shellac is derived from insects,so it is not a vegan product. It is gluten free. Also, oddly, this is made in Mexico. (I checked my other recent Starburst purchase of Starburst Very Berry but confirmed that they were made in the USA.)

Aside from the size and the enhanced ability to combine flavors, the other difference is texture. I found that the pieces were slightly aerated. They weren’t as dense as a regular wrapped Starburst, and also not quite as intensely flavored. But they’re softer and easier to chew. The chew had the same long-lasting flavor and lack of grain ... but a lighter dissolve on the tongue (I think because of the aeration).

They don’t do well in humid climates. Humidity in Los Angeles, lately, has been around 40% and they’ve done well, but one damp morning and they were rather stuck together. I left them in the office overnight where it’s air condition and they separated again. So if you’re in a humid area, you might want to stick with the wrapped version or keep these sealed in a zipper bag when you’re not busy consuming them.

The key feature to recommend the Starburst Minis is not their size, it’s the fact that they’re unwrapped. But I’m sure there are a lot of folks who will hone in on the fact that they don’t have gelatin in them. I don’t like the texture as much, but I can see the appeal of these, especially in circumstances where the wrappers are a hindrance, such as snacking on a plane or in a movie theater. But mostly I figure Skittles are mini Starburst - not quite the same flavor array, but a good approximation and they don’t stick together.

UPDATE 9/3/2014: I picked up another package, because I’ve noticed some comments about the flavor and texture that were inconsistent with my initial review. Since that was a year ago and the candy has been in production for a while, I thought perhaps there were differences when the candy sits around on shelves for a few months or if they’d tweaked anything.

I found them to be quite firm, tough even. It’s workable, but not a feature I find comforting. The flavor is also off, especially on the citrus flavors ... I definitely got a little note of something metallic with the lemon and orange. If this is the way everyone else is tasting them, I’d downgrade them to a 6 out of 10. I’m sticking with regular wrapped Starburst.

Related Candies

1. KitKat Minis
2. Candy Tease: Sweets & Snacks Expo - Part 2
3. Starburst Very Berry
4. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups Minis
5. Skittles (Fruits, Wild Berry, Tropical, Smoothies & Sour)
6. Starburst

I often try to champion exceptional candies, ones that don’t have million dollar advertising budgets or huge fandoms on social networks. But there are other candies out there that have been plugging away for decades just being dependable. They’re not the best they could be, but they certainly don’t get the attention they deserve.

So here they are, not the only 10 candies that are underrated, but just 10 that I happen to love and find myself eating more often, now that I’ve circled around and tried a few thousand other candies in the past eight years.

Chick-O-Sticks (Atkinson’s)

Description: Orange crunchy layers of peanut butter crisp rolled in coconut.

What’s to like about it?

Crispy peanut butter layers. You get right to it, no busting your way through some crazy overly-sweet mockolate. It’s just about the peanuts, it’s completely crispy, a little salty and totally nutty. The best format are the individually wrapped minis shown, they make far less mess than the long bar format.

They’re vegan and gluten free.

Hesitations?

Well, there’s coconut on the outside. I’m not sure why, but it’s there and it’s always been there. There’s not a lot and it really doesn’t contribute much to the flavor but does give a little chew to the texture. What would make me even happier is if they got rid of the artificial colors in it, which I could swear give them a slight bitter aftertaste that I don’t get from the equally lovely Atkinson’s Peanut Bars.

What makes it underrated?

The packaging is lackluster and they can be hard to find, especially in the Northeast.

Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews (Just Born)

Description: a molasses chew studded with peanuts covered in dark mockolate.

What’s to like about it?

Molasses and peanuts. That’s it. It’s dark and mysterious, only slightly sweet, sometimes a little bitter. It’s chewy and crunchy and with a lot of nuts, it’s very satisfying and filling. They come in cute little bars, so you can just eat one or two and save the rest for later or share. They’re vegan!

Hesitations?

The mockolate coating is disappointing. It’s usually a bit toasty flavored but waxy so it lacks a creamy smooth quality that might really tip this over into being an incredible candy.

What makes it underrated?

The name and packaging marks it as an old-time, regional candy bar. Just Born, who bought out Goldenberg’s, renamed the candy, then brought back the classic name & design, further confusing people. The molasses component is a hard sell in artificial times.

Root Beer Barrels (Various Brands)

What’s to like about it?

It tastes like root beer! I tastes more like root beer than most of the cheap and weak sodas on store shelves and it’s more portable. It’s a hard to find flavor that really shines in hard candy form.

Hesitations?

Some brands are better than others. Voids in the candy can be sharp and make small cuts or abrasions on the tongue or palate.

What makes it underrated?

It’s hard candy and hard candy is for old ladies.

Honees Honey Drops (DiNatura)

Description: little honey flavored hard candies filled with honey.

What’s to like about it?

They’re dead simple and satisfying, the honey center coats the throat and does actually soothe without medication.

Hesitations?

They can be expensive and can be messy, as many packages get sticky because of the delicate filling in the pieces.

What makes it underrated?

They’re stuck in the cough drop aisle, not with the rest of the candy. Sure, they’re soothing, but they’re also comforting, and who doesn’t want to be comforted regularly?

Chocolate Covered Orange Zest (your local chocolate shop)

Description: candied orange peel is dipped in dark chocolate

What’s to like about it?

It’s extremely simple with a good combination of textures and flavors. There’s the bitterness of the orange oils and dark chocolate, the chewy texture of the peel and the creamy melt of the chocolate.

Hesitations?

They’re a small treat, and the satisfaction is usually due to good quality peels done well (not to soft and sticky, not leathery tough) and appropriate amounts of chocolate. They’re often expensive, which is odd because it’s basically chocolate covered garbage, but they do require a bit of manual labor to make.

What makes it underrated?

Probably the fact that some places sell bad versions or put awful chocolate on them. They’re also not for everyone, citrus is just not everyone’s thing.

Hot Tamales (Just Born)

Description: rod shaped hot cinnamon jelly beans.

What’s to like about it?

They’re cinammony, soft and chewy. They’re not too hot, so you can eat a lot of them, unlike some other super sizzling cinnamon candies.

Hesitations?

The red food coloring is a bit overwhelming and sometimes I get a package that tastes like cherry.

What makes it underrated?

They’re just jelly beans. There’s only one flavor in the box.

Buttermints (Richardson)

Description: buttery mint puffs

What’s to like about it?

They’re like sweet, minty air. They’re soft and melt in your mouth. They’re lightly flavored like peppermint, the opposite of the blast of flavor from an Altoid.

Hesitations?

They’re hard to find and can get stale quickly or take on flavors from other foods around them. If they’re sitting out in a bowl, they’re going to be disappointing.

What makes it underrated?

They’re marketed as an after dinner mint, not a treat in their own right.

Toffee Peanuts (Various brands - shown is Old Dominion also Adams-Brooks Candies)

Description: crunchy caramelized sugar covering peanuts

What’s to like about it?

They’re often found at truck stops and in vending machines. They’re a great combination of satisfying peanut protein and sweet, buttery toffee. Though they’re similar to French Burnt Peanuts, they’re not as tough to crunch and often have a more authentic peanut and browned butter flavor to them.

Hesitations?

They can be sticky and sometimes if the bag has been shaken up too much, all the toffee comes off the nuts. (But then it’s just perfect as a topping for ice cream.)

What makes it underrated?

As you may have already noticed a theme here, underrated candies are usually in small pieces, not bar form. It’s easy to dismiss a toffee coated peanut because there are other, more trendy candies out there. But they’ve been making these for hundreds of years for a reason.

Spearmint Leaves (Generic)

Description: spearmint flavored jellies shaped like a mint leaf.

What’s to like about it?

There are so few spearmint candies in the United States these days, and these endure for a reason. They’re sweet but with a really powerful spearmint note to them that balances it out. The sugar crust balances the sticky jelly of the center. They’re usually vegan as there’s no gelatin used in gumdrops.

Hesitations?

They can get stale quickly, or worse, get sticky and damp. They’re not easy to combine with other candies in a trail mix. I feel like an old lady when I pick them out in the store.

Sugar Babies (Tootsie)

Description: caramel bits covered in a grainy sugar shell.

What’s to like about it?

If you’ve ever thought, “why don’t they make caramel jelly beans”, this is the answer. Why make a flavored item when you can give the same treatment to the real thing.

Hesitations?

When the get stale, they’re pretty hard. They don’t do well in trail mix with things like dried fruit because the moisture will make them even grainier or sticky.

What makes it underrated?

I think folks stop eating them when they grow up, and never go back.

So that’s my list. What do you think is undervalued or poorly marketed?

Related Candies

1. Candy Tease: Bar None, Reed’s and Regal Crown Sours
2. Flix Candy Flix Mix
3. Candy Tease: Sweets & Snacks Expo 2011 Part 1
4. Candy Tease: Nostalgia in 2011
5. The 110 Essential Candies for Candivores

In a world where more financial transactions are digital and something like Bitcoin is a reality, it’s comforting to know that barter still exists. Over the new year my mother had a neighbor request to use her empty parking space in her condo parking lot to store a car while they were on a trip to the Philippines for a month. My mother agreed for a nominal fee and the simple request: bring back some Mentos, the kind you can’t get in the United States.

They obliged! So upon their return I was gifted three different 810 gram bags of individually wrapped Mentos. (Yes, for mental metric converters, that totaled 6.36 pounds.) Each large bag, the size of an airplane pillow, contained 300 pieces. There were three varieties: Mentos Duo, Mentos Tropical Mix and Mentos XTreme Spearmint.

Mentos Duo Lemon Grape has that wonderful Asian grape flavor instead of the American artificial grape. It’s soft and floral and reminds me of concord grapes right off the vine. The lemony center is subtle and lightly zesty without adding too much sour. They’re more subtle Mentos, not like a Skittle. This was one of my favorites.

Mentos Duo - Mango Orange is orange on the outside and mango on the inside. The orange flavor is sweet with a little bit of tanginess. The center is also sweet, but without the tart bite and a little note of pine and peach that mango can sometimes have. It’s a nice little change of pace from regular citrus Mentos.

I’ve tried the Duos before and like the idea of them and in this bag the two combinations are well done. They’re a little different which sets them apart from the usual chews like Starburst.

The Tropical Mix doesn’t have anything that new in it, as all of these flavors are now available in the Mentos Rainbow worldwide.

Mentos Watermelon reminded me of a Jolly Rancher. It’s an odd sort of flavor, at first is was actually a good representation on the outside, but the inside got strange. It was a little plasticky - like styrofoam and had notes of mint to it. I don’t know if it was because they might have been too close to the Spearmint pieces, or they were just weird. I’m not that big on Watermelon candies, so for the most part I chalk it up to personal preference.

Mentos Orange starts with a floral orange blossom flavor, and maybe even a hint of bergamot. The tangy juice flavor don’t develop until the pieces are well chewed. There’s not much zest to it, but a good well rounded orange flavor still emerges.

Mentos Pineapple is probably my new favorite Mentos flavor since Pink Grapefruit disappeared. It’s tangy and floral and the flavor is intense enough to last to the very end. I found myself pulling them out of the mix pretty consistently.

I enjoy the fruity Mentos a lot. I took a large zipper lock bag of these with me on my trip to Hawaii. A little treat like this is good for the ears like chewing gum on a flight. The pineapple and orange felt like they were breath fresheners, too. I don’t know why they don’t sell the individually wrapped version here in the United States. The rest are going in a jar on my desk at the office, even my most germaphobic office-mates won’t have a problem.

Related Candies

1. Mentos: Ume, Honeyed Apple and Lemon Squash
2. Mentos Pina Colada & Mojito plus Mentos Duo
3. Mentos Cinnamon
4. Fresh Cola Mentos
5. Mentos Plus Citrus Mix
6. Dalandan & Juicy Ponkan Mentos
7. Pink Grapefruit Mentos