Cucu CaffeLatte

What? Another review of a Cucu candy? Yes, Candybowl is nuts about Cucu candy and wants you to be too.

The initial taste is caramel, possibly even caramel corn. Yes, there's also milk flavor, but the overall taste impression is not of coffee.

That changes when we get to the crunch. Each bite off the cube (and yes, dear readers, this candy fractures like Blondie's heart of glass, in the sense that what I find is pleasing) yields a burst of milk coffee flavor. Not exactly Starbucks -- more like a cup of coffee that is laden with condensed milk -- but coffee nonetheless.

Still not convinced? Then you haven't, to use the patois of Chicago's Mayor Daley, gone Cucu.

Kyoto Brown Sugar Candy

Followers of this blog know that Candybowl is a big fan of the Cucu candies produced by Japan's UHA Candy company. This candy, while apparently not part of the Cucu line, will be familiar to anyone who has eaten one of those candies.

The flavor notes are intense caramel throughout. Although Candybowl rarely eats molasses, this candy tastes like what Candybowl believes molasses tastes like. The burnt sugar flavor is a little off-putting, but the overall effect is quite impressive.

As seen in the photo, this candy is a marbled cube. The bite is just what one would expect from UHA -- a nice fracture, with an impressively clean finish.

If you want a really nice candy, eat a Cucu butter caramel. If you want something special, eat one of these.

Rings Vitamin C Fruit Candies

This treat comes to us from a company that is new to Candybowl, the Pine company.

According to the package, each of these candies contains 50mg of vitamin C. While that's not going to rock Linus Pauling's world, it would be a much-needed addition to a hypothetical diet of soda, pretzels, and gummy candy.

The vitamin C seems to be the small colored pellets within each candy. As you suck the candy, the pellets are exposed giving little bursts of sour. When you bite into the candy, the little sour pellets break apart and create a severe risk of pleasure. The crunch is excellent, and leaves little residue.

These candies have proven very popular among those who have tried them. They come in three flavors -- the white ones (pictured) are lychee, the pink ones peach, and the yellows are lemon.

Konami Candy

This konami, or soy flour, candy comes to us from Kasugai, the makers of the ubiquitous gummy candies. But comparisons must end there, because in contrast to the gummies' almost-premature explosion of flavor ecstasy, this candy holds back until the end.

It's an attractive two-tone candy, with a white stripe that is identified as "miruku" candy (you figure it out). It has a slightly textured outside that seems to be by design. The fracture is nice, although it leaves an unacceptable amount of residue on the tooth.

The initial flavor notes are caramel, toasted grain and nuts. But they float gently behind a pleasant, shall we say, candyness that makes it hard to discern the flavors. Don't expect a big flavor burst at the crushing finale -- this candy is just that way.

In the 1970's, Kraft made a line of flavor-boosted peanut butters called Koogle. This candy tastes like Candybowl thinks a flavor-inhibited peanut butter would taste like. Inscrutable.

Long ago, Candybowl knew someone who drank Postum, a coffee substitute made out of roasted wheat. This candy tastes like what Candybowl thinks Postum must taste like. Earthy and delicious.

Konami candy comes in a mixed bag with green tea and red bean flavors. All highly recommended, though Candybowl feels compelled to say that the red bean flavor has been an issue for a denizen or two.

Scorched Rice Candy

A recent visitor to The Candy Bowl (the blog, not the candybowl) said to me "You know what ones I like? Those burnt rice ones that are supposed to taste like the rice at the bottom of the rice cooker."

Chinese call it guoba. Koreans call it nurungji. If you have a decent modern rice cooker, and use it correctly, you probably will not get it at all. But make rice in an old/cheap rice cooker, with too little water, or too much heat, or too much time, and you will get a tasty brown crust on the bottom that has flavor to die for (and I'm sure some kind of naturally occurring chemical to die from. But I digress).

This candy is meant to taste like scorched rice, and has a good approximation of that flavor. Some liken it to burnt popcorn. Not charred popcorn, but popped kernels with golden brown around the edges. Some people like it a lot, including me. Others, including a certain high-level functionary, do not like it at all.

It's a spheroid boiled sweet, with creases and lumps on the outside. But it has a nice fracture, sometimes cracking in half. It leaves a bit more residue on the molars than a candy this good ought to. But that's all the more reason to suck it. And although some think the flavor at the center is different from that on the outside, Candybowl can assure you that he has proven them wrong beyond doubt.

Despite its long tenure in the candybowl (with fresh stock added at reasonable intervals), you people have not been eating enough of this candy. Candybowl says to eat this candy. Or else.

CubyRop

This is one cute candy. Two small cubes, each of a different flavor. And the name -- CubyRop -- shimmers with Asian linguistic mystique, suggesting a malapropism that one simply can't put one's finger on. Not only that, but this bag of mixed fruit candies also promises interesting flavors -- Pasionfruit, Boysenberry, Muscat, Grapefruit and Lime.

Sadly, the fruit flavors not only are cloying and unrealistic, but also are overwhelmed by menthol notes that will be familiar to consumers of Hall's cough drops. There are five different flavor options, to be sure, but none of them taste like any fruit that Candybowl has eaten.

Moreover, considering that this candy is all about form, the number and variety of structural issues are surprising. First, the cube is rough-hewn, with rippled edges. Second, some of them have cloudy centers indicating, perhaps, that the sweet was not properly cooled, or they are damaged when they are cut into cubes. Finally, the cubes tend to stick together making many of these candies distinctly non-cubical (for these, RectangularprismRop would be a more accurate, if unwieldy, moniker).

The crunch test yielded mixed results. One cube was tough and gummy. The other disintegrated into a sandy paste, like a sugar cube. And this was two cubes from the same package!

Despite all these flaws, this is no tomato candy -- it's flavors are pleasant enough, and sweet like a sweet should be. But like so many things in life, the package makes promises that the contents can't keep.

Kanro Fruits & Milk, Fruits & Yogurt

Once again, the confectionary wizards at Kanro have delivered candies worth blogging about.

As the name implies, these are fruit candies with milk or yogurt added. The fruit flavor is realistic, although, as is common in mixed fruit candies, some (e.g. Mango) are more realistic than others (e.g., Grape).

Kanro's attention to detail extends to the candy's appearance as well. This boiled sweet has a good shape, and is two-toned, indicating that the milk/yogurt is separate from the fruit.

It releases a lot of flavor without biting, but like the tootsie-pop owl, Candybowl simply can't resist for long. The crunch is refined, fracturing nicely, and leaving just a small amount of residue on the tooth.

These sweet morsels have proven quite popular, and new supplies have been added to the candybowl. Just the thing to get the taste of Korean Red Ginseng Red Bean jelly candy out of your mouth. Try it now!