This is my first “taste off” for CandyBlog. I’ve chosen Haribo Gummi Bears to go head-to-head with Trolli Gummi Bears. They’re both the “original” gummi bears that most Americans remember hitting big on the candy scene in the early eighties. I spent quite a bit of my allowance on these. My in-school supplier was a German girl I hung around with, Tina, who must have had them imported by the case by family members. She always seemed to be able to sell me a little 2 ounce packet of them when I needed a fix. Later I found a place in Georgetown (yes, all the way down in DC - I grew up in Pennsylvania) or at the White Flint Mall where I could get them by the pound. Eventually, by the mid-eighties everyone carried them and of course there were more brands available. But the two that I had first contact with were Haribo and Trolli. There are plenty of other brands, like Heide, Black Forest, Brachs and of course a Disney cartoon franchise.

Personally, before this taste test, I would say that Haribo was my favorite. Let’s see how they do…

Name: Trolli Gummi Bears
Brand: Trolli (now owned by Farley’s & Sathers)
Place Purchased: 7-11
Price: $.85
Size: 1.5 oz
Calories per ounce: 100
Type: Gummi

Trolli Gummi Bears come in five flavors. From left to right they are (as far as I can tell): Cherry, Orange, Lemon, Pineapple and Lime. The shape of the bears is a rather stylelized bear shape, with a large head, narrow legs and little bumps for eyes and a nose.

Trolli are soft, soft bears. Squishy and aromatic, they yield their flavor instantly on the tongue. Inside the package they look a little greasy, but they don’t feel that way once you pop them in the mouth, they’re far softer than Haribos with a better burst of flavor when you put it in your mouth. The cherry is very strong, and overwhelms all the other flavors in the package, all of them smell like cherry.

Name: Haribo Gummi Bears
Brand: Haribo
Place Purchased: Cost Plus
Price: $1.39
Size: 5.29 oz
Calories per ounce: 100
Type: Gummi

Haribo Gummi Bears are kind of freaky looking in these photos, they look a little evil. Trust me, in person they’re just cute as can be. Their heads are smaller than their body (as it should be) and they have softer curves and cute little dimpled ears. Their bellies have a little texturing that I think is supposed to be fur.

They’re far firmer than the Trolli Bears. What’s cool about them is that you can have them in your hand or pocket (yes, I sometimes stick candy in my jacket pockets not in any sort of wrapper so I can snack discretely when walking or in a meeting) without them sticking to anything. The Trolli bears have that oily coating that just makes lint stick to them. The flavors from left to right are: Berry (strawberry or raspberry, I can’t tell), Orange, Lemon, Pineapple and Lime.

Flavor for Flavor:

Red - this is the only color where the flavor is different in the brands:
Trolli’s red is robust cherry flavor, with a good woodsy undertone, nice tartness and aroma. Haribo’s berry is tart and sweet, but lacks a flavor punch (because I can’t tell what flavor it is).

Orange - the color and the flavor
Trolli’s orange is soft and has a good tartness and flavor, a slight bitter tinge to it, like orange oil.
Haribo’s is immediately zesty without any bitterness. Tart and sweet, with more flavor going towards the aromatic orange than juicy.

Yellow - lemon, one of the most enduring flavors in the world
Trolli’s lemon was sweet and tart with that same bitter zest tinge to it.
Haribo’s lemon was incredibly lemony, with all the notes: zest, sweet and sour. Flavor through and through, mellow but vibrant.

Clear - the puzzling flavor of the gummi bear world, I’m going with Pineapple here
Trolli’s is nice and sour but lacking flavor (I’m still tasting the cherry on most of these even though I segregated the other flavors over the weekend).
Haribo’s is intense, with a good sour punch that makes my salivary glands tingle. If I were only allowed one gummi bear flavor for the rest of my life, this would be it.

(The funnest part of the clear ones is that they remind me of invisibility. You know, like Wonder Woman’s invisible plane on the Superfriends. See, you can cast the whole cartoon with gummi bears! The Red Bear is Superman, the Orange Bear is Aquaman, Yellow is Batman and Green is Robin. It’s a perfect match!)

Green - everyone’s least favorite flavor, Lime
Trolli’s lime is very zesty with that slight bitter bite to it and a strong and smooth sour to it. Most lime things remind me of cleaning supplies and this one is no different.
Haribo’s lime gummi is the least flavorful of them all. It’s tart and much sweeter than the others and has an unnoticeable note of lime to it.

Since I’m not a fan of cherry, the Haribo Bears are a more logical choice for me because I’ll eat all the flavors in there (and their Pineapple is so phenomenal).

In the end, this test only confirmed what I already knew, Haribo is the bear for me. The slightly waxy outer coating and firmer bite might be a negative for some folks, but I find it to enhance their durability. The flavors are all intense and distinct. Trolli’s softer chew is compelling but the overwhelming intrusion of the cherry flavor on its companions is a real turnoff for me.

Other resources: About Gummi Bears, Huge Selection of Haribo Gummi Products, Gummi Bears TV Show, the largest Gummi Bear photos.

UPDATE: I should have known that Haribo would win ... Google Fight told me so.

UPDATED UPDATE: Haribo’s green bear is Strawberry ... kind of strange, but if you close your eyes and don’t look at the color it’s a little more obvious. (Thanks to the readers who pointed that out.)

Name: Pop Rocks Dips
Brand: Pop Rocks
Place Purchased: Sample from CandyWarehouse.com
Price: $.95
Size: .63 oz
Calories per ounce: 100
Type: Sour

I’m old enough to remember Pop Rocks when they were first introduced (then made by General Foods which later dropped them). And I liked them then. I also liked to experiment with them. You know, what happens if you put them in soda? In milk? Will the dog eat them? What if you dry your tongue out by holding it in front of a fan for twenty minutes and then put the pop rocks on it? The variety as a child was endless. (I guess my mother never stressed that whole, “don’t play with your food thing.”)

This new iteration of Pop Rocks solves one of the issues of dispensing Pop Rocks for consumption. Before you’d either have to pour it into your mouth or out onto you hand and it’d invariably get sticky there. This packet of Pop Rocks includes a little rocket shaped lollipop (of the same flavor) for wetting in your mouth and dipping into the foil pack. The lolly itself is pretty good, not terribly sour or flavorful, but a good delivery device.

Pop Rocks themselves are interesting, probably a candy to be enjoyed in a group. Tart and crunchy with a good fizz. When I was a kid, I think the only flavors they came in were orange and grape. I liked the orange best. The rocks themselves are more like flakes (I’m not sure, but I thought they looked like little crisped rice kernels when I was a kid, but who knows).

If I have one tip for the packaging is to put the lolly in a separate package and make the Pop Rocks envelope a little smaller. It’s damn hard to get the little lolly into that big bag where the Pop Rocks only cover the bottom of it. Also, it’s been damn humid here lately, so if you open the package and don’t eat it right away, be sure to close it tightly, mine ended up being one big pop rock.

Good fun. Additional Info - How Do Pop Rocks Work?, Mikey from the Life Cereal Commercials and Pop Rocks, Super 70s Website and the unofficial Pop Rocks website.

Rating - 6 out of 10 (I might buy it again if they made orange)

Name: Junior Caramels
Brand: Tootsie
Place Purchased: 99 Cent Only Store
Price: $.99
Size: 4.5 oz
Type: Caramel

What took the Junior line so long to expand? Apparently they’ve been around for a while, but not everywhere (I guess they’re sold in Canada?).

Junior is currently owned by Tootsie Roll. Junior Mints have long been a favorite of mine. For the record, I like them equally as well as peppermint patties - their fillings are rather different with the only similarities being they’re both white and mint flavored.

Junior Caramels are just soft caramel balls about the size of a garbanzo bean in chocolate. What’s good about them is that the caramel is actually soft and chewy, unlike Milk Duds, which I think must be subsidized by the dental care industry because they’re probably designed for pulling out fillings. (Don’t get me wrong, I love Milk Duds ... especially since they started using real milk chocolate on them, but Milk Duds don’t love me.)

You can pop more than one in your mouth at a time. But they’re kind of fun to bite in half, too.

The caramel in the Junior Caramel doesn’t have that good burnt sugar/toffee taste that Milk Duds do, but they’re still a good chew. They’re sweet and need a little something to counter that. I’ve been eating this huge box with some raw almonds and pretzels, I’ve found it’s a good combo. I haven’t tried them yet at the movies, but I’d think that they’re the perfect movie candy because each one takes a while to chew and actually goes well with popcorn.

Rating - 6 out of 10

Other resources - find a rerun of this episode of Unwrapped to see them made!

One of the best things about this blog is finding out about completely new varieties of candies I’d never heard of. One of these is Japanese Black Sugar Candy. Known as kuro sato, black sugar is basically brown sugar/molasses.

True brown sugar is basically sugar made from the whole boiled cane instead of just the cane juice that keeps the molasses. Molasses and black sugar is high in potassium as well as traces of iron, calcium and even a little salt. The taste of black sugar is similar to muscovado and has a salty, smokey taste to it. In the States, most brown sugar that you buy in the grocery store is just white sugar that has a bit of molasses added back into it.

Some Japanese just eat nuggets of black sugar as a treat (similar to maple sugar candies or Mexican panela). In fact, I used to eat brown sugar right out of the box as a kid. I loved the flavor of it. Many doctors and pharmacists have for years used muscovado-type sugars for medicinal use, either as a base for cough remedies or added to make medicinal syrups.

The Japanese use the bold taste of kuro sato to full effect in a lot of candies. Most are hard candies which are either for eating or for use as cough drops (often with the addition of honey or menthol).

Here are a few I found:

Name: Kuro Ame
Brand: Kasugai
Place Purchased: Jbox
Price: $2.00
Size: 200 grams
Calories per ounce: unknown
Type: Hard Candy

from JBox - “A wonderful traditional Japanese hard candy, this is “Kuro-Ame” (Black Candy), a famous Japanese treat loved by everyone since the 1860’s. With a long history and a unique brown-sugar taste, this is a classical Japanese treat. One bag includes 22+ individual wrapped candies.”

Name: Pocket Black Sugar Throat Treatment Candy
Brand: Nobel
Place Purchased: Jbox
Price: $1.50
Size: 50 grams
Calories per ounce: unknown
Type: Hard Candy

In the tradition of a cough drop (similar to Ludens), this black sugar candy is packaged to carry easily in your pocket. Each piece is individually wrapped and has the distinctive taste of black sugar mellowed with a tinge of honey and menthol.

Name: Kasugai Honey & Black Sugar Candy
Brand: Kasugai
Place Purchased: Jbox
Price: $1.50
Size: 250 grams
Calories per ounce: unknown
Type: Hard Candy

Shaped like little gems, these black sugar hard candies are individually sealed and packed with a little silica gel pack to keep them dry. They have a very smooth, sweet taste because of the honey. Not as smokey tasting as the Kuro Ame made by the same company, these are probably a great one to carry as a little pick me up and throat soother. Of the three products I bought, this is the one that is already gone.

Ratings - Kuro Ame - 6 out of 10
Pocket Black Sugar Throat Treatment Candy - 7 out of 10
Kasugai Black Sugar & Honey - 8 out of 10

For more reading: Black food power, Sugar Cane - Okinawa’s Way of Life, Kokutoo - Black Sugar

Also - see previous review of Asahi Drops (I didn’t know what Japanese black sugar was when I reviewed them)

Name: Starburst Sours
Brand: Starburst (Mars)
Place Purchased: 99 Cent Only Store
Price: 33 cents
Size: 2.07 oz
Calories per ounce: 120
Type: Chew (Sour)

I love sour stuff, though I must admit that as I get older, I’m not really into the tortuous super-sours that I pursued as a kid. So, basically what I look for in a sour is something that gets my salivary glands to tingle, but also delivers flavor and hopefully doesn’t trash my tongue too bad.

The issue I run into with many of the more modern sours is that they’ve gone off and created rather chemical tasting candies. I’m kind of a fan of citrus sours, but the new sour flavors like green apple just taste like something I’d clean my windows with. The Starburst Sours are green apple, blue raspberry, cherry and watermelon. Now, I don’t think I’ve ever had a sour watermelon in my life, so that one was especially puzzling. But perhaps I should drop logic and reality from this review.

First flavor was watermelon. It’s got a nice sour bit to it without overwhelming the watermelon flavor. Green apple is chemical through and through. Very sour and creates (sorry to be gross) some pretty unpleasant burps for me. Blue Raspberry reminded me of blue highlighter pens (and a bit like those scented markers we also had as kids) - the flavor is just like what I’d expect for a red raspberry, but I think that’d be too many pink things in the package, so they made it blue. I think the most successful flavor in the package is the cherry one - though I’m not a big fan on the flavor cherry (mostly because I associate it with poison because the red dye #2 thing back in the 70s) but this has a lot of flavors within it. It’s got a good sour bite to it that goes on through the whole chew, a nice woodsy cherry flavor and then a sweet maraschino topnote.

On the whole, I think Starbursts are great. They were a great addition to the market when they first came out because they filled that hole - they’re chewy like taffy but not likely to pull out your fillings (or as a kid it seemed like I was always losing a tooth or a new one was growing in so taffy was pretty hard to eat). Starbursts have that great chew but are forgiving and not so rubbery as to pull on anything. Don’t get me wrong, they can get plenty stuck in your teeth, they’re just not taking your teeth out.

These are not a flavor pack that I’m likely to buy again (I really love the originals though and will continue to buy them or Skittles) but I appreciate the addition to the line for those that like artificial sours.

Rating - 7 out of 10

Related Candies

1. Starburst Sours (New)
2. Starburst Retro
3. Starburst Baja California & Tropical
4. Starburst Berries & Creme and Fruit & Creme
5. Starburst
6. Starburst Icy Bursts

I’m as big a fan of novelty items as the next person, but what always disappoints me is that the actual product rarely matches the packaging. Here’s an exception. CandyWarehouse gifted me with these incredibly cute poker themed chocolates. There are playing card mint truffles and milk chocolate poker chips. Poker, as we know, is all the rage, with tourneys going on all over the country and of course those crazy celebrities getting in on it. If you’re like me, you’ve probably played for pretzel sticks at some point in your life. While playing with real food is dangerous (because you’re likely to eat your winnings), it’s also a bit more fun (at least to me) than playing for money.

Name: Chocolate Poker Chips (Milk Chocolate)
Brand: Madelaine
Place Purchased: CandyWarehouse Sample
Price: $14.40
Size: 36 pieces
Type: Milk Chocolate

These chocolate poker chips come in a clear plastic tray that you could actually use for racking real chips. Like chocolate coins, the disk of milk chocolate is held inside a foil top and bottom. The chocolates themselves have no embossing, so their value is lost once you unwrap them (or is it?). The milk chocolate is creamy and smooth, very sweet and would be a great complement for other card playing snacks like pretzels.

For folks who are seriously interested in using these as real chips, you’d better pick up the 5 lb version. The high-stakes chips are like the mint chocolate cards below.

Name: Chocolate Poker Playing Cards (Mint Truffle)
Brand: Madelaine
Place Purchased: CandyWarehouse Sample
Price: $9.60
Size: 16 pieces
Type: Chocolate (Mint)

These were seriously good and I’ve had to restrain myself. Think of a giant Andes Mints. Because of the dastardly heat wave here in SoCal, I’ve been keeping these in the fridge and they’re wonderful served that way (I don’t usually like chilled chocolate). The mint is very strong and the chocolate combo (two layers of semi-sweet chocolate with a minted white chocolate in the middle) is just right. It melts easily on the tongue and refreshes.

The face card theme is fun (but entirely unnecessary in my opinion). Forget poker with these, I’d prefer to play blackjack with them and keep having the dealer hit me.

If I were going with a Vegas themed party, I’d absolutely order some of these up because the chocolate was of good quality and the packaging was very well done.

Ratings - Poker Chips - 7 out of 10 (I think the mint chocolate chips would be 8s)
Playing Cards - 7 out of 10

Name: Finger Lites
Brand: Malibu Toys, Inc.
Place Purchased: sample from CandyWarehouse.com
Price: $28.80 a case or $.80 each
Size:  .5 oz
Calories per ounce: dunno
Type: Lolly (with battery)

Here it is, the neatest thing to hit candy since citric acid. That’s right, the ultra-cheap LED technology is now being applied to candy. Malibu Toys has created a whole line of light up candies, with the Finger Lites as the center of the line. They have other products, like clip ons and necklaces, but they’re based around the same center of a battery hooked up to an LED. Personally, of all the formats I prefer the ring, since I really don’t want a slobbery piece of hard candy hanging around my neck and getting lint stuck to it.

The ring comes sealed in a little plastic pouch. To activate the light, you pull out a little paper tab that allows the battery to make contact with the wiring for the LED. Then it starts flashing. And flashing. The package says it will stay lit for at least two hours. Mine is still flashing and it’s been a week since I pulled the tab and ate the lolly.

I picked an orange one, though they come in a large variety of colors/flavors and have themed shapes for different holidays (Easter means bunnies and duckies, Halloween means vampires and pumpkins). The orange one was a little bland, not terribly tart or flavorful, but then again, it’s a novelty.

Would I buy this again? Hell yes, I’m planning my next party around them. I think the cool thing to do is probably figure a way to hang up the eaten ones on a string or something (maybe I’ll do it for a Christmas party and hang them on the tree). Some convenience stores are refusing to carry Finger Lites because they think that kids will chew up the LED/Battery. I’m one of those people who can’t help but chew up my hard candy and had no trouble telling the difference between the candy and the hard plastic housing for the light. In fact, I don’t think I could break it with my teeth if I tried. I’m wondering if those convenience store people tried them.

I know, I know, it’s not a terribly eco-friendly product either. Forgive me, I usually make good choices when it comes to that stuff, but I couldn’t help myself.

This candy gets points mostly for novelty, not taste, but it’s still a winner in my book.

Rating - 8 out of 10

Name: Ginger Bear
Brand: Buderim
Place Purchased: Trader Joe’s
Price: $3.29
Size: 12 oz
Calories per ounce: 90
Type: Gummi/Ginger

It’s a like a dream come true. Someone’s combined one of my favorite candies with one of my favorite flavors.

Well, it’s the thought that counts.

Ginger Bears are gummi bears with real ginger in them. That’s why they’re kind of cloudy looking. I’m not sure if that expains why they smell like photoprocessing chemicals. Not the bears themselves, just when you smell them in the bag. I know that ginger in and of itself doesn’t have a great scent, kind of like wet earth. But this was more of a chemical smell and might be from the bag itself. I took a few out and let them air out on the desk, they seemed fine after that.

These bears are a bit larger than the ones we’re used to from Trolli or Haribo. They’re also not quite a gummi, think Swedish fish, really. But, they’re very spicy, not too sweet and are decently priced.

What I like about them is that they’re not sticky. While I like the Ginger People’s and Chimes’ Ginger Chews, they are very sticky and might one day yet pull out some of my fillings. These are soft, chewy but with a good consistency and not the slightest bit sticky. They could use a little work on the appearance but other than that, they’re a solid recommend as long as you keep your nose out of the bag.

Rating - 7 out of 10