Nobel Blueberry Sours Gummy

Living in the Midwest in the United States means my access to Japanese candy is somewhat limited. Some brands, like Lotte or Meiji, are fairly easy to come by, but I can't ever recall seeing Nobel candy around here. I'm not familiar with Nobel at all, but since I don't live in Japan, nor have I ever, it's no surprise.

So, without any brand knowledge, I didn't know what to expect from Nobel or these Blueberry Sours Gummies. Had I read the bag before digging in, I would have noticed that the front of the package says they're hard. Twice, actually.


These are the firmest gummies I've ever had. They were so difficult to chew! I can't really fault them for that, since it's written on the package, but I really wasn't expecting such a firm texture. It's not what I prefer in a gummy.

The blueberry flavor was mild but fairly authentic, but these weren't even slightly sour. They might qualify as "mildly tart" but even that is a stretch. The dominant taste was sweet, and the gummies left a film in my mouth after swallowing. Even with fair warning about the hard texture, these gummies were a big disappointment.

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Nobel website

Kabaya Hello Kitty Strawberry Milk

Don't judge a book by its cover doesn't really apply to candy, but maybe it should. I tend to gravitate towards Hello Kitty products, so I was really excited to see this bag in my sample package from Tsunami.hk. Half the bag is Kitty's face - the candy must be good.

My expectations only got higher when I opened the bag. As shown in the following photo, the white, round candies were individually wrapped in clear plastic so that each piece looked like Hello Kitty's face. It is definitely some of the cutest and cleverest packaging I've seen since I started this blog 2 years ago.


The candy was a different story. The concept was rather complex; there was a crisp and chewy outer sugar coating, then an inner layer of intensely sweet white chocolate, all surrounding a hard and crunchy strawberry-flavored center (like the center of a Gobstopper) with candy pieces inside. It was a little overwhelming, and not at all what I imagined.

Instead of tasting like milk, the white chocolate layer tasted like sugar, and pairing it with a crunchy sugar coating didn't help. The center was so hard that it hurt to chew, and the strawberry flavor was pretty typical, but it was hard to pick out from all that sweetness. It's the white chocolate layer that ruined it for me, because if it was just a candy shell around the strawberry center, I think I would have liked this candy much more.


Because the design was so clever, I rated these a little higher than I would have based on taste alone. The packaging is that cute. The candy just didn't suit my tastes at all, but one of my friends really liked them and graciously finished the bag for me.

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Kabaya website

Orbit Perfect Peach and Berry Red

Despite my recent lack of Orbit gum reviews, I have continued my quest to try every flavor. Orbit has made that rather difficult lately, with the barrage of new flavors released in the past few months. I've tried them all, but some of them slipped through the review cracks. Don't worry, things are under control at Gum Alert!

But I did review two of the new flavors, Perfect Peach and Berry Red. I liked the bright packaging, and both seemed like good flavors for summer. I haven't seen much peach gum, so I was especially excited for that one.


Perfect Peach smelled sour and juicy, and the initial flavor was pretty strong and fairly authentic. I was reminded of a sour, not quite ripe peach. The gum felt cool but not minty. The chew was nice and bouncy without being too tough, but most of the flavor was gone within a few minutes. B


Berry Red smelled so much like medicine. It didn't taste as quite as strong as it smelled, thankfully. The gum was tangy and juicy, with a false mixed berry flavor that reminded me of bubble gum. Again, the texture of the gum was good, but it lost flavor quickly. The gum was chewable, but too medicine-like for me to buy again. C-

Orbit website

Godiva Spring Chocolates + 1 Summer Truffle

This free truffle every month at Godiva thing isn't working out too well for me. At the end of April, I went in with the intention of getting two truffles (one being the freebie), and I came out with six. They had an assortment of new spring chocolates, but instead of the round truffle, these were flattened chocolates stamped with a pretty floral pattern. Finally, because I can't resist mango anything, I also got a mango summer truffle for "free."

I forgot to write down the flavors when I was at the shop, but according to some post-tasting research on a non-Godiva website, they are mandarin orange, pina colada, black raspberry, green pear, and lemon chiffon. I'm not sure I agree, and I plan on double checking, but please correct me in the meantime. You can think of this as a blind taste test.


I'll start with some controversy. Supposedly, the piece with the green and white pattern was Green Pear, but when I tasted it, it felt very apple. It was delicious - my favorite of them bunch - as it had a nice, subtle cinnamon flavor and a lovely caramel texture. It tasted like a rich apple cider in a melty milk chocolate shell. A+

There was no mistaking Black Raspberry (purple flowers). It was full of seeds! So many seeds, actually, that it was distracting. The dark chocolate shell was nice, but the filling was just a bit weak and didn't have the bite I look for in a raspberry sweet. The plentiful seeds were too much for me, but they did convey the feeling of jam. C+

The only white chocolate piece in the bunch, Pina Colada didn't have much flavor at all. All I could taste was a sweet white chocolate at first, then hints of coconut milk and a tiny bit of citrus. It was so very mild, and was my least favorite. C-

I believe the orange and yellow chocolate was Mandarin Orange, but it could have passed for lemon. The milk chocolate was quite good, but despite a crisp citrus flavor, the center was just a bit too sweet. Still, it was probably my third favorite out of the five. B

The last of the spring chocolates was Lemon Chiffon, in yellow and white flowers (I think). I know I said the green one was my favorite, but I may have to reconsider, because this chocolate was amazing. The filling tasted just like fresh lemon pie filling. I could taste the lemon juice, and the zesty, tart filling was just perfect with the buttery chocolate shell. A+


Finally, here's the bonus summer truffle: Mango. The dark chocolate shell had a nice snap, leading to a citrusy mango filling with a surprisingly authentic flavor. It was sweet and delicious, and even had some of the smooth, thick texture of mango. A

There were some outstanding chocolates in this bunch, and though I'm not sure I needed all of them, even the not-so-stellar flavors were fun to try (especially since I was guessing at flavors).

Mars 3 Musketeers Truffle Crisp

Outlet malls are never as good as they seem. It sounds great, decent products at discount rates, but anything that's actually cheap tends to be damaged or defective. When I shop at clothing outlets, good stuff never seems as cheap as it should be.

Oddly enough, this candy bar was purchased at an outlet mall candy store. As you can see in the next picture, it was $1.25 US, which is a little pricey for a candy bar. Since it was an outlet mall, I figured the bar was discontinued, but it's actually rather new to the market. Rosa at ZOMG, Candy blogged about how Truffle Crisp is actually a re-brand of a poorly marketed bar called Fling, and it's an interesting read. The original Fling slogan was colossally bad.


I was expecting the Truffle Crisp bar to be like a Twix, with a cookie layer under nougat, so it was a bit of a nasty surprise when the bottom layer was more like meringue. It was chalky and sweet, and I really wished it was a cookie instead. I only like meringue on pies - things like meringue cookies really don't do it for me.

The candy bar was pretty much doomed for me after that. The melt was nice, but the nougat was so very sweet (especially atop all that crunchy sugar/fat). My husband didn't really care for it either, but one of my friends liked it. I suppose it comes down to your feelings on meringue. Still, it was nice to see something different.

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3 Musketeers website

Trident Layers Green Apple + Golden Pineapple

While grocery shopping, this gum called out to me in the checkout, as new things often do. I've had some bad luck with non-Orbit fruity gum, but the idea of layered gum was too intriguing and gimmicky to resist.

If you take a look at the picture below and compare it with the picture above, you might notice that the actual gum is not green-yellow-green like the cover, but yellow-green-yellow. I'm not sure if the layers are actually flavored differently, or if it's just for show, like an Andes mint. The discrepancy wasn't really upsetting, just an odd marketing choice. In fact, I hoped it meant that the gum would be heavier on the pineapple side. I was completely wrong.


The green band in the middle of the gum made it look neat, but it was very sticky and soft, making the gum a little messy to take out of the wrapper. As for the flavor, the pineapple was completely undetectable unless I used my imagination, and I never would have thought it was there if the package didn't say so.

The gum was a little on the soft side for chewing, and although it was very juicy, it was a basic sour green apple gum that reminded me of children's bubble gum. After a while (maybe 10 minutes), the flavor became stale, and wasn't doing my breath any favors. This gum was disappointing, since it tasted like fake apple and nothing else, but I can't say I hated it. I won't buy this flavor again, but I'd be willing to try others.

For more reviews, check out Gigi-Reviews, The Impulsive Buy, and Gum Alert.

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Trident website

Bourbon Matcha Mont Blanc

On the last day of our time in Japan last month, my husband and I went to a nearby grocery store in Kyoto to get some cheap things to fill the empty space in our suitcases. That was the only place I saw large packages of single serving cakes, so I decided to try these.

Mont Blanc is a famous and fairly popular dessert in Japan. It is very pretty, and though typically made with chestnuts, sometimes there are other flavors included, like in these matcha cakes. Of course, being a packaged product, I didn't expect these to be as good as the real thing.


Although the box claimed that these had the aroma of matcha, all I could smell was something odd (probably preservatives). Moving past the smell, the taste wasn't really matcha, either. Or at least it wasn't as strong as I would have liked. It might have been masked by the chestnut flavor.

To call the spongecake mild would be kind, as there wasn't much flavor to speak of, and the cream in the middle was not terribly noticeable. Even the chocolate on the top didn't really taste like matcha, just sweet white chocolate. The azuki beans throughout the layers did add a nice texture, and surprisingly, carried their own flavor well.

I might like this more with some actual matcha brewed tea, as I think the bitterness would bring out the flavors in the cake, but on it's own, this cake just wasn't flavorful at all. It wasn't a bad taste, but it was very disappointing. I would like to point out that Bourbon can make good prepackaged cakes. I took some vanilla and chocolate cakes into work, and they were much better.

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Bourbon website

Ice Breakers Rasberry Lemonade Bang! Chewy Sours

Bang! I love the Ice Breakers Sours series of candies, so when I saw these Chewy Sours at the store, it seemed like a good idea to try them. I thought they would be like Chewy Spree, but I was wrong.

The first issue was that they all stuck together in the package, so maybe they were stored at hot temperatures somewhere. They were also oddly shaped and not at all uniform. Even though they weren't what I expected, I was still pretty excited about them.


The candies smelled a bit like a cleaning product, mostly like citric acid. The coating, which looked like the regular sours, was good and sour and definitely lemonade flavored, but it all went downhill from there. These were chewy in the same way that licorice is chewy, which isn't a bad thing, but doesn't really make for a good, lasting chew.

The real issue I had with these was that the flavor of the licorice-type chew was that it was fairly flavorless. Once the sour burst (bang?) was gone, I was left with a sweet, oily, vaguely fruity wad of something that I didn't really want to be eating. It was very disappionting, and I'll stick with the regular sours. The idea of a chewy sour is good, but the execution in this case was poor.

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Ice Breakers Website

Berry Blast Mike and Ike

The last kind of Mike and Ikes in my trio of reviews was sadly the worst. I am a big fan of real berries, but these were very disappointing. The back of the box claims that they are "bursting with fruit juice flavor!" That means exactly what it says - the flavor of fruit juice.

Once again, there are five flavors, and I'll take a look at them individually. I tried one of each to see without looking at the box to see if I could guess the flavors, but the only one I got was strawberry.



Blue Berry is noticeably not "blueberry" and it fits, because it doesn't taste like blueberries. It reminds me of a Dum Dum flavor, I'm just not sure which one.

Wild Berry doesn't really mean much to me, either. This one is green, and doesn't really taste like a berry. It's just vaguely fruit punchy.

Strawberry is very Chupa Chups strawberry - if you've ever had one of those suckers, you'll know what I mean. It tastes like how a strawberry car air freshener smells.

Mixed Berry is pretty forgettable. It's certainly not bursting with flavor and it's just vaguely berry.

Red Raspberry doesn't really taste like raspberries, either. It's missing the tangy flavor that I love in raspberries and it just tastes sweet.

So, these were pretty disappointing and forgettable. At least my curiosity about the various flavors of Mike and Ike is somewhat satisfied. I heard the Tangy Twister kind is good...

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Just Born website

Nestle Caramel Macchiato McFlurry KitKat

Has there ever been a KitKat with a longer name? I bought some of these KitKats while in Japan, and the package says it's a collaboration with McDonalds (hence the McFlurry part of the name). But right away, I knew this wouldn't be the KitKat for me. I'm not a huge fan of coffee-flavored things, even though I love coffee. However, with Japanese KitKats, I feel that I have an obligation to taste them.

The box boasts of a "delicate aroma and milky flavor" but the whiff I got when I opened the package was not at all delicate. Like many caramel KitKats of late, my first impression was a strong smell of caramel. I didn't pick up on the coffee or on any ice cream scent. My expectations were pretty low at that point.


It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I'm a sucker for pretty chocolate, and I do love a swirly looking KitKat. The coffee taste was very much in the background, with the exception of a few bites. It could have been my imagination, but I think the darker swirls in the white chocolate had a stronger coffee flavor. For the most part, the taste was a chemical-y caramel.

The white chocolate itself was creamy and decent (not chalky), and I finished one of the two sticks before my throat started to burn from the sweetness. With some bites having more coffee flavor than others, it seemed inconsistent, and they might as well have left off the McFlurry part, campaign be darned.

So, this isn't in the running for favorite KitKat by any stretch of the imagination, but at least it was better than Muscat of Alexandria (review coming soon). I was a little too kind when reviewing this last night, so as of 11/28, the rating has changed...again. Japanese Snack Reviews also has a review of this KitKat.

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KitKat Website (Japanese)

Jolly Rancher Fruit Chews

I struggled mightily with the loss of the lemon Jolly Rancher. Never was there a better flavor. In any case, I just haven't been able to enjoy them as much since then. I'm not a huge fan of hard candy since it makes my teeth feel gross, so you'd think these fruit chews would be a good solution. I'll break down each flavor.

I'd like to mention first of all that the box my friend bought didn't have any Cherry in it, so I can't review that flavor. Way to go, packaging machine.

Blue Raspberry: There's nothing quite like that chemically enhanced raspberry taste. It reminds me of the Blue Raspberry Blow Pops I used to love as a child, nice and tart. However, and I'll have the same complaint for all of these, it was so grainy! Just like Air Heads taffy. I prefer a smoother chew, and the grainy, crumbly kind just isn't for me.

Green Apple: This one was sweeter than I was expecting, and it's a pretty good match for granny smith apples, but I wish it was more sour. Again, these things are too grainy!

Watermelon: This was my favorite of the three. Just like the watermelon Jolly Rancher, it was tart, juicy, and sour. I just couldn't get over the grainy texture!

I liked the small size of these, because with Laffy Taffy, I felt like there was just too much taffy in my mouth, but I wish these had a more Laffy Taffy-like smooth texture. I know a lot of people like Air Heads, so I'd recommend it to those people. In the meantime, I prefer the hard candy, but only once in a great while.

I'm still mad there was no cherry. And bring back lemon Jolly Ranchers.

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Jolly Rancher Website

Orbit Fabulous Fruitini Gum

In my quest to taste all current flavors of Orbit gum, I've come to my penultimate flavor. Although it's not the newest, I had just never gotten around to trying it. I figure the snack blog is a good enough excuse.

This time, it's Fabulous Fruitini. What fruit is it going to be? The smell is a little reminiscent of PEZ, but I wouldn't recommend smelling the whole box, it kind of smells like paint. Smell 1 stick. Unwrapped.


The gum is quite tangy and juicy! I think I can taste pineapple and banana right off the bat, but I'm not really sure what other fruits are in play here. It kind of reminds me of Fruit Stripe gum, only without as much artificial color. Compared to other Orbit flavors, though, the flavor was gone kind of quickly, maybe only 5 minutes of good, juicy chewing. There is a slight background mint that keeps it from tasting stale, though, which is great.

The texture is similar to that of the Strawberry Mint: firm but not hard, smooth, and squeaky. I'd place this one in the bottom third in the Orbit deliciousness spectrum, where Lemon Lime is on the bottom and Citrusmint (or Raspberry Mint) is at the top.

Only Crystal Mint is left now. It might be a while, since I now have 4 packs of Orbit at home to chew, and my jaw is tired from all this gum reviewing. Not to mention I'm getting a little worried about what the sorbitol will do to me.

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Orbit Website