Sugar Free Life Saver

I am pleased to present the sugar free Life Saver, another in my occasional series of guest candies. For reasons unclear to me, this candy was not popular when it was in the Candy Bowl. It should have been.

Once you get beyond the stigma of "sugar free," you will find this is one flavorful non-nutritive foodstuff. But what flavor? It tastes like fruit, but not like any particular fruit. Childhood experience with purple magic markers led me to believe this would be a grape flavored candy, but it tastes like neither grape or artificial grape. Raspberry? Perhaps Life Savers outbid Jolly Rancher for the last barrel of artificial wild berry flavor. The only aspect in which the candy disappoints is the aftertaste, which has slight notes of dish soap.

The factor that moves this candy from just north of blah to just south of boffo is the crunch. The fine people at Life Savers have managed to duplicate the crystalline crunch of a fine hard candy, and the absence of sugar (no, Dear Leader, your nemesis HCFS was not invited to this party) means that it doesn't gum up when you chew it.

If you needed any more reason to try this candy, consider this: Life Savers is owned by Wrigley. Maybe that funny flavor was the taste of Chicago.

Soda Mix Candy

I'll be the first to admit, this is one strange candy. So strange, in fact, that I believe it could only have come from a work-release program for criminally insane food chemists.

The package, which now wish I had kept, illustrated three different flavors (no doubt, the "mix"), each representing a moderately famous Japanese soda flavor. Had I kept the package, I might have been able to guess which one this particular sample was meant to taste like. But I didn't, so all I can do is give you my impressions of how it tastes.

It tastes like lemon. Or soap. Or some kind of lotion. Lemon moisturizing soap. Tasty lemon moisturizing soap. Or what I imagine Mr. Clean-flavored soda would taste like. (Honestly, I think this might be Calpis Water flavor.)

The crunch is good, not great, with a bit more residue on the tooth than I'd like. None of this leads me to speculate on what those drano-blue flecks are.

Try one and see what you think. Take it from the royal taster: you will not die, it's not poison!

Plum

This plum-flavored boiled sweet comes to us from Haitai, the people who brought us the Melon candies. In fact, it has a lot more in common with the Melon candy than with the nama ume ame plum candies I recently profiled.

The initial flavor is subdued, almost bland. Can it really be that the plum flavor manifests as a fragrance but not at all on the tongue? A piece of rock candy with the mere hint of plum blossom perfume? Consider how watery a real plum is. This sensory sleight-of-hand presents a nice example of how confectionary works of art can imitate life.

This is one candy you'll want to bite into. No more pulling punches; the natural plum flavor explodes in your mouth. The crunch is familar -- this candy is the equal of any ordinary boiled sweet, fracturing well and leaving just a bit of residue on the tooth.

Well worth a try.

Melon is Back

Melon is back!

Can those tasty Korean Red Ginseng jellies be the next to re-appear? I hope so, because my post on that candy yielded (via Google) the first hit from Korea. Yep, Candybowl is on the Seoul train.

Moment of Clarity

Every once in a while, we can get a moment of clarity that forces us to rethink what we're doing, and why we're doing it. Mine came while eating a Milky Way caramel candy.

I was wondering how a manufacturer could decide to put such a valuable brand name on something so waxy and distinctly lacking in cocoa flavor. As I typed the words "slight notes of play-doh," I wondered to myself, is this where I wanted to be when I started this project? Am I really never going to say a nice word about a domestic candy? And what will happen when, as seems inevitable, I run out of different candies to write about? I grabbed a lychee gummy just to take the sickly caramel taste out of my mouth.

I've thought hard about what this blog means, not just to me, but to us. All of us, including people like a certain high level functionary who still doesn't know it exists, but knows that the candy is good. It is good. And it's gotten better because of this blog, and because of all of you.

And so I rededicate myself to this project. There's no way to know what it's going to become, only that it will be.

I would like to thank you for bearing with me during what has been a hard week, my septimanus horribilis. I'd also like to thank Milky Way's insipid caramel candy, for "grantin me this moment of clarity, this moment of honesty. The world'll feel my truths through my hard knock life time, my gift and the curse. I gave you volume after volume of my work, so you can feel my truths."

CB

Super Juicy Gummy

I have made passing reference to the Kasugai gummies over the past few weeks, and they are collectively the most popular offering of all time, so I suppose this post was inevitable.

The good folks at Kasugai have blessed us with an array of flavors. From memory, the candy bowl has featured peach, apple, orange, pineapple, lychee, grape, muscat grape, melon, and kiwi (pineapple and lychee are pictured at left). Some, like the orange and peach, have been quite popular. Others, like the melon and muscat grape gummies, languished in the bowl.

These little morsels have no crunch at all. Some might say that's what makes them so good. No crunch, that is, except for the kiwi ones. The little brown lumps in the kiwi gummies are kiwi seeds. Seeds. What did you think they were?

To see just how cute a corporate website can be, check out http://www.kasugai.co.jp/

Charcoal Roast Coffee

Those of you who liked Kopiko owe it to yourselves to try this hard coffee candy. The name "sumiyaki" translates to "charcoal roast," a style of coffee I believe is unique to Japan.

It's a black coffee candy (i.e. no milk) but exhibits very little of the bitterness that afflicts some of the other dark roast candies. The flavor has less of the caramel note that makes Kopiko so good, but it has a bit more realism in the coffee flavor.

The bite is good, but not great. It fractures well -- so well, indeed, that on my first bite I just cracked off part of the candy, leaving most of it intact and ready for another attempt. The finish is a little gummy, but unlikely to take out anything but the loosest fillings.

Preserved Plum Candy

Those of you who have tried ume shiso rolls at finer sushi restaurants (including Oysy) will immediately recognize the flavor of this candy as ume boshi, preserved plum.

The striated outer surface of this morsel suggests that this candy is made of spun sugar. I think it's more likely that it is extruded. Either way, the hard candy shell has a pleasant, not-too-sour plum flavor.

Biting into the candy (the now-familiar ame o kamikudaku test) you will find that it is filled with real salted plum paste. Salty, sour, preserved plum. Mmmm. (As an aside, I don't really understand why this is called "nama ume ame," which I amateurishly translate as "raw plum candy." Anyone?) I recommend sucking it for a little while, then biting in while there's still some candy shell, because the plum paste by itself can be a little overwhelming.

You should try this one. Or maybe not -- this could be a gateway to eating whole ume boshi, and who knows where that could lead?

Vitain Yogurt Candy

Vitain seems to be the energy drink of the candy world. It contains Vitamin C and real Yogurt culture. The yogurt flavor dominates, with a hint of peach.



The double-dose of purported health benefits may explain why the morsel has two faces. One side is slightly chalky like a Sweetart, or perhaps a Tums, and the other side is like a boiled sweet.



Another candy you won't want to chew right away, but the crunch is good and the finish is clean.

Kanro Grape Candy

This traditional hard candy, from a package of mixed fruit sweets, was a pleasant surprise.

The initial taste impression is artificial grape, supplanted almost immediately by real, or very realistic, Concord grape flavor. Those of you who have had Kosher sacramental wine will recognize the flavor immediately. The rest of you are, no doubt, more familiar with Wild Irish Rose. Either way, it's good!

So good, in fact, that I didn't want to bite into it. Loyal to my readers, however, bite I did. It fractures well, but with a bit of gumminess on the molar. Points neither won or lost, but if you're like me you'll probably want to savor it until the end.

A tip of the hat to Kanro's Manager of Research Office in Development Main Unit Masuhito Yamamura.

Alphonso Mango

This candy comes to us from Kasugai, who produces the gummies that have charmed so many of you. The comparison ends there.

Its smooth outer appearance suggests a refined boiled sweet, foreshadowing (but not revealing) the outstanding experience that is to follow. This is no boiled sweet; the hard candy coating melts away to reveal a soft middle layer that contains real mango.

The flavor of the hard shell is excellent, not quite like fresh mango, but certainly the equal of the puree that Indian restaurants use in mango drinks. The center has the unmistakable taste of sweetened dried mango. Overall, the flavors are closer to Manila mango than to the big green and red "Tommy Atkins" mangoes that proliferate in U.S. supermarkets. And that's a good thing.

This is the first featured item from the new batch of candy. It's going to be a great week.

Jolly Rancher Mountain Berry

Denizens of the candy bowl know I have tended towards foreign candies. So when I agreed to write about this one, I was hoping it would provide an opportunity to show balance, to find new hope for our nation. Sadly, I found yet another sign that the U.S. continues to trail the developed world in confectionery.

The disappointment starts with the package -- a non-tamper evident wrapper totally unsuited to these dangerous times. Untwisting the ends reveals a rough-hewn lump to which the photo barely does justice. Uneven ends and a wrinkled surface, like someone who just woke up and has pillow marks all over her face.

The flavor is sweet and tart, with notes of wet-ones and poultry seasoning. Where's the berry? Certainly not in the sample I received. Perhaps "mountain berry" is a euphemism, like certain oysters.

And no biting, please. This candy is so hard it will break your teeth. That means that like some brooding 3-hour art house film, once you start, you can't leave until it's over. Except this is more like like a Matthew McConaughey flick -- you liked the looks of it, but when the lights dim you realize you're stuck watching the Wedding Planner. Alone.

Jolly? I think not. Rancher? Hmm....

Hokkaido Milk Candy

Here's another candy that has languished in the bowl. I think it has something to do with the cow on the package. I suspect people just don't want to take the chance that it's going to be cow flavored.

This is a milk candy -- the characters on the front say "Hokkaido," referring to Japan's dairyland. It's a nice soft candy, but to be honest, it's not going to knock your socks off. The milk flavor is subdued, with overlays of vanilla and play-doh. Still, worth a try while supplies last.

Korean Red Ginseng

This is the package from the last ginseng candy. It had the unmistakeable musty nose unique to that vitality-giving root. Although it's gummy candy, it was totally unlike the Kasugai fruit gummies -- firm to the bite, almost waxy, the kind of candy that investigators find half-eaten at a crime scene and use it to identify the victim through dental records.

Sadly, my source has not carried these for a few months, so it has gone the way of the melon candies.

This candy also represented my failure as a candyvangelist. "What kind of candy should I have?" you would ask. "Try a ginseng candy," I would say. But most of you didn't. Well, now they're gone. Those of us who ate them enjoyed them. And the rest of you can just spesiate on might-have-beens.

Campino Orange

This delightful German orange cream hard candy is the first in what is hoped will be a series of featured guest candies.

It opens with a burst of orange flavor, tempered by the cream, all reminiscent of an Orange Julius. After a while, the cream comes to dominate the palate (think anschluss rather than blitzkrieg). The milk flavor is described elsewhere as yogurt, but I think this could just be the citrus notes.

The texture is nice, but not as refined as some. It fractures well without any of the gumminess found in some candies (notably the Lychee boiled sweets), but immediately disintegrates into small crystals, much like chewing a sugar cube. This does not detract from the experience, however, and may counsel for simply sucking the candy until it is gone.

The purveyor of this candy has taken a different tack when it comes to candy presentation. Rather than the "big tent" approach of the candy bowl, each type occupies its own jar. This confectionary apartheid is rendered unobjectionable, in Candybowl's opinion, because the candy is itself of mixed origin -- a rejection of the deplorable and sometimes violent practices that led to a near-total isolation of generations of orange candy.

Walnut Soft Candy

True, this walnut candy comes to us from Korea, the nation that brought us tomato candies and ginseng jellies, but fear not: this is a refined confection with a good mouth feel and a nutty aftertaste. Soft, but not too soft, it's like a piece of salt water taffy at room temperature. It features what appear to be genuine pieces of walnut but, since I do not read Korean, I am only speculating. You can speculate, too.

Melon

This melon flavored candy has been well received by the candy eaters, although lately only one person -- a high level functionary whose identity shall remain undisclosed -- has been actively seeking it out. Aside from the word "melon," the only other English words on the package are "fruity cocktail." They mean it. This candy is made with natural flavors.

It is also the only candy known to be associated with mouth injuries. The investigation was eventually closed with a finding of "improper mastication" -- what do you expect from a person who thinks plastic dolls eat lemon candies?

This may be the last melon candy for a while, as my source appears to have stopped carrying them. Indeed, at press time there is only one in the bowl, so act accordingly.

Kopiko

Kopiko is a coffee candy from Thailand.

Unlike many of the coffee candies on offer, it is not a dark roast. Instead, it has a mild coffee flavor, with just enough milk and burnt caramel notes to evoke thoughts of the venerable Heath bar.

The package has what appears to be a "gold medal" on it. Don't be misled -- the fine print just says that it has the aroma of choice coffee beans.

Cucu Green Tea

Cucu is a green tea milk candy.

This selection has, in my humble opinion, received inadequate attention from the candy eaters. If you've ever had green tea ice cream, the flavor will be a familiar one. The texture is exquisite -- a hard morsel that fractures like an ice cube when you bite into it. As close to a perfect hard candy as exists in this world.

Clearly, I am smitten.

Super Lemon

Super Lemon. What could be confusing about this? Yet this candy has engendered a number of negative reactions, perhaps reviled only slightly less than the now-infamous tomato candy.

A quick look at the package could help clear up some misconceptions.

First, notice what happens when the Peter Max-inspired lady puts the candy in her mouth. "Oh!" she says, "Powerful Candy." Lesson #1: this is powerful candy.

Second, look at the small diagram showing the technology that makes this candy so powerful. A thin layer of "Lemon Taste Powder," provides the shockingly sour flavor. Then follows a layer of "Mild Lemon Candy," a mild lemon candy -- the lotion after the butt-whipping, as it were. And finally, a core of "Super Lemon Candy," more sour than the Mild layer, but nothing compared to the Lemon Taste Powder. Which leads to Lesson #2: the shockingly sour flavor only lasts a brief time, and once you suck on it long enough (or bite into the thing), it's gone.

So now, if you find that, as one person put it, the "lemon candy made me cry," you'll know that it's nothing more than Japanese candy technology at its best.

Welcome to the Candy Bowl

Welcome to the Candy Bowl blog. It is hoped that this blog will not be defined by a single candy bowl, but will become a place to talk about the candies in our lives. That said, I can only start with what I know.

Big changes are coming to the candy bowl. With the arrival of a host of new flavors, we will also welcome back an old friend -- uncertainty.

In the interim, this is probably a good time to talk about what's been on offer up to now. And, while there's no guarantee that praising a candy will lead to its eventual reappearance, other avenues, such as savoring (or suffering) in silence, are far less likely to lead to that outcome.

So here goes.