Oh, the lovely commenters here are blessed, blessed friends to have told me of this Mentos assortment ... the assortment of my dreams!

Citrus candies are my absolute favorite and of course the Pink Grapefruit Mentos are divine. There are parts of the world where you can get these, Mentos Plus Citrus Mix. They’re fortified with Vitamin C and come in an assortment of three flavors: orange, pink grapefruit and lime.

At first I was thinking, Lime? Why not Lemon? But they pulled it off, a Lime as spectacular as Pink Grapefruit is. It’s zesty and slightly bitter but doesn’t give me any images of housecleaning products. Just clean, clean limes.

Orange was nice and juicy. Not quite zesty enough for me, but far and away better than the American Orange Mentos that we get in the regular mixed Fruit roll here.

Here’s another curiosity from the label. The Fuji Apple ones I reviewed didn’t have gelatin in them (and were halal) but mentioned Gellan Gum. This box has no gelatin or gellan gum, instead lists starch and gum arabic as the thickeners. It also bears the halal seal. I find it amazing that Mentos have so many different recipes worldwide. (This package also contains 2.5% fruit juice.) If you don’t have any problems with sugar these look like they’re vegan (no beeswax or insect-derived colors) but please read all labels as I’m finding that this may not be the case with every package.

The package is about 1.5 ounces (42 grams) and I counted 18 pieces in the box. The vitamin C content is 4 mg per piece.

These should definitely be made available in America. If they’re not going to give us rolls of the Pink Grapefruit, they should really include them in a mix like this. They’re just so darn pretty, too. Repackage them for weddings in little clear boxes to show off the delicate pastels and they could knock Jordan Almonds out of favor.

Special thanks go out today to Santos for bringing me these three lovely (if now empty) boxes of Mentos. These were made in China for the Philippines. I think they also sell them in Australia. Has anyone else spotted them for sale in their area?

Related Candies

1. HiCHEW Yuzu & Valencia
2. Pure Fun & Yummy Earth Organic Hard Candies
3. Mentos Berry Mix
4. Sunkist Fruit Gems
5. Pink Grapefruit Mentos

Santos returned to LA with some wonderful new Mentos for me to try! (See more of her lovely gifts to Los Angeles bloggers at Franklin Avenue.)

Today I’m sampling the fantabulous and refreshing Mentos Fuji Apple.

The Green Apple Mentos that are pretty easy to find domestically (sometimes they’re labeled for Canadian sale and say Pomme Vert), but they’re definitely not the same thing. The Green Apple Mentos taste like that wonderful artificial green apple. Kind of plastic but puckeringly pleasant.

The Fuji Apple Mentos are a lovely off white color, like the inside of a freshly sliced apple.

Fuji Apple, well, is awesome. It replicates that crisp apple flavor so well. A little bit of the apple skin and a lot of the tart tingly flavor of real apples. They say they have “nature identical flavors” in there on the ingredients, for whatever that’s worth. If you’re a candy swapper or planning a visit to Asia and looking for something inexpensive to bring home for your pet-sitter, this might be the thing.

This candy was made in China and labeled for the Philippine market.

The Mentos USA website says they have a “Flavors of the World” store, but they are sadly lacking in the really great flavors they do offer overseas. Oh, how I wish that they did carry the true global varieties. Japan, Philippines and China all carry this flavor and it’s possible you can pick them up in Australia easily.  I haven’t seen them in the Asian markets in Los Angeles (but I haven’t looked very hard since Santos always hooks me up).

Note: these Mentos have no gelatin in them as the American and European ones do but contain something called Gellan Gum instead as a thickening agent. They are not certified Halal or Kosher though (I have some others that I’ll post about that are Halal). Maybe some vegans can weigh in on whether Gellan Gum (derived from bacterial cultures) is on the approved list.

Another curiosity ... in the US Mentos are usually called Chewy Mint on the package. Just about everywhere else they’re called Chewy Dragees.

Related Candies

1. HiCHEW Yuzu & Valencia
2. Dalandan & Juicy Ponkan Mentos
3. Pink Grapefruit Mentos
4. The Lemonhead & Fruit Heads

I felt like a little fruity break this morning and picked out these Mentos Plus in Berry Mix to review. They have added vitamin C (4 mg per piece!). I’ve seen these in the States, but only in the sugarless variety. Santos gave me two boxes of these in the last delivery of candies from the Pacific. I gobbled up the first box shortly after taking this photo.

They come wrapped in a clear plastic outer wrapper and the box is about the size of a deck of cards. The flip top makes it easy to share, and with a flavor mix like this, easy to pick out just the flavor you want at the moment.

The lightest pink is Cherry. It’s not bad, tart and with some nice cherry notes that reminded me a bit of the Apple Mentos. As a cherry candy goes, this is quite pleasant and has no bitter aftertaste ... but since I find it palatable, true cherry fans may find it an abomination.

The dusty pink is Strawberry. It’s a very deep flavor, going for the darker musky strawberry notes instead of the light florals that you usually get. A good tart bite and some musk melon in there.

The hot pink is Raspberry. This one is the most “fake” tasting of the bunch, with some pretty intense “flavor” of raspberries going on. Again, it doesn’t go for the light floral elements that you usually find in raspberry flavored things, instead it’s got a razzle-dazzle in there that reminded me of some intense raspberry jam or fruit leather.

This box makes me wish they’d do a Citrus Mix - orange, lemon and pink grapefruit. That’d be awesome.

But back to the product in hand ... I’d buy these, especially if I were traveling. I find chewy candies like these to be great for airplanes, a little something to get your salivary glands activated in the dry cabin and perhaps unstop your ears. Easy to share, maybe a good way to bond with your seat-mates. And perhaps the little dose of Vitamin C will help keep those airplane diseases at bay.

These were purchased in Guam, but made in China. They are certified Halal (which means the gelatin is not of porcine origin).

For those of you who don’t have any Mentos nearby but wanted some Mentos fun, check out the Indian website for Mentos, called the Mentos Helpline ... some of the humor doesn’t translate in all cultures, but it really is rather an interesting and non-traditional promotional site. Kudos to Mentos for thinking outside the box once again and embracing their fans. More about the Mentos Helpline in this article.

Santos of Scent of Green Bananas has been a great source of fun Mentos and KitKats. She’s been promising me some Pomelo Mentos, which I imagine are much like Pink Grapefruit Mentos.

But last month she surprised me with these little gems from Guam.

Ice Pomelo Mentos sound rather odd. For those of you who have never seen them, pomelos are large citrus fruit with a very thick skin and grapefruity taste (the common grapefruit is a cross between an orange and a pomelo).  I’m always a little leary when combining mint and citrus but then I have to remember that the mojito seems to combine Lime and Spearmint to great effect, so I’m game.

They look rather like the Pink Grapefruit Mentos, a cool and mellow pink. Upon biting into them, they’re soft and chewy (hooray for fresh freshmakers!) with an immediate hit of mentholated mint ... kind of like a Hall’s cough drop. The citrus pops in with some nice zest to it, but no tangy/juicy component.

I can’t rate these as high as the Pampelmousse, but I still liked them quite a bit, especially since I’ve been getting over the bronchitis and medicinal tasting things are actually a comfort.

Mmm, more Mentos from the Pacific. These little cuties were also in my package from Santos. It was a mixed bag of miniatures in three flavors. Grape, Apple and Watermelon.

Starting from the left the light yellow-green ones are Apple. It’s a mild apple, not very tangy, but floral and sweet and very pleasant. The candies themselves are a little smaller than the normal Mentos, not just small pack like you’d get Lifesavers.

In the middle are little lilac wonders in Grape, these were, to put it mildly, odd. They were kind of concord grapey and completely unlike those malic acid wonders you find in a roll of SweeTarts. These were floral and had a sort of balsam note that reminds me of concord grape skins when you eat them fresh off the vine. At first I was a little put off, but I chalk that up to the whole expectations thing. When I stopped thinking about it, I really like them and now I’m regretting sending a bunch of them off to the Mentos winner last month.

The more vivid green ones are Watermelon which are very sweet and have an odd note of mint to them (which could be a manufacturing problem). The melon flavor is true and has that sort of woodsy note to it, but no tartness to it. Not my fave but not terrible.

You thought Pink Grapefruit and Licorice Mentos were exotic? How about these flavors from the Philippines ... sent to me by Santos of Scent of Green Bananas. They’re both citrus flavors: Dalandan Fresh and Juicy Ponkan.

Dalandan Fresh comes in green, yellow and blue wrappers, but the candy itself is a lovely sherbet orange. A dalandan is a citrus commonly known in the Philippines as the Sweet Orange. They’re likened to Valencia oranges, but the main difference is in the appearance. A ripe dalandan has a green peel (hence the wrapper is green).

The candy has a nice chew, of course, and a good sweet burst of orange essence with a bit of a tangerine or clementine note and maybe a little pomelo thrown in. It’s more sweet than tangy, but the flavor is pretty intense. I miss the sour notes that are in the Pink Grapefruit but this is much better than the plain orange available in the mixed fruit box.

The Juicy Ponkan flavor comes in an intense orange wrapper but the candy inside is a soft orange. Like the dalandan, the ponkan is a citrus but this one is in the tangerine/mandarin family and has an orange rind that’s leathery and easy to peel. It’s a bit more tangy than the dalandan and has a more robust flavor with floral notes, tartness and a zesty essence that lingers.

I really liked this one, but they’re both a great change from plain old orange. Every once in a while one would have a slight minty or menthol taste, which made me wonder about the manufacturing process. Both varieties were manufactured in Indonesia for the Philippino market. (More about ponkan here.)

I know that it’s going to be hard for readers to go out and find these (I couldn’t even find a source online), so I’m happy to put together a prize package for Mentos Adventurers that will include an assortment of these and some other hard-to-find Mentos. To enter simply .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) with the subject line “MENTOS” by October 9th, 2006 at 12 noon Pacific. One lucky winner will get an all-expense paid package of Mentos from around the world. (The fine print: North America addresses only. No need to give me your address unless you win. One entry per person. Failure to follow rules will result in disqualification for drawing and general irritation.)

UPDATE (10/9/2006 - 3:02 PM) - No more entries, please… we have a winner! (To be announced shortly.)

There was a satirical article yesterday on Brainsnap about banning Mentos and Diet Coke on airplanes because they can be combined to create a limited albeit powerful improvised explosive device.

Of course this ties in beautifully with the TSA’s overall “war on moisture” and it wouldn’t surprise me that even though that story is a joke, that something could come to pass that would mean that you can’t bring Mentos onto a plane.

But let’s face it, there are a lot of things that can be combined to “explosive” effect when you seal them in a bottle. Vinegar and baking soda comes to mind and that’s not that hard to get together on a plane with salad dressing and Arm & Hammer. Of course Diet Coke isn’t the only carbonated drink that can cause problems and it’s not just Mentos either. There are a lot of mints that can cause this same effect, just try it with other breathmints. But these videos on YouTube do show that you can do something powerful, though uncontrollable, using process of “nucleation.” See, just that word is gonna freak out the TSA.

It’s kind of sad too, since I’ve had so much trouble finding Chicklets, I’ve been using Mentos to relieve my ear pressure problems on takeoff and landing.

I always figured it would be the food police keeping me from my sweets, who knew that the TSA may be the biggest threat to candy at high altitudes?

I knew that Mentos was unofficially delighted about the geyser videos circulating on the internet (with over 5 million hits) as well as the appearance of it on CBS’ NUMB3RS series and later The Late Show with David Letterman.

Little did I realize that they’re looking to give it a little push to continue.

Mentos is running a promotion on a separate website called MentosGeysers.com  where they list all the stuff you can win for submitting the next great Mentos Fountain movie.

First prize is 1000 iTunes downloads and a year’s supply of Mentos (which they say is 320 rolls ... no word on whether or not Pink Grapefruit is among the choices).

Even if you just enter you get a cap, tee and towel!

Here are the full entry rules (hosted by youtube.com)

More on the story here.

Deadline is 9/30/2006

Be sure to leave a comment here with the URL of your entry!