Today I admit that I have learned an important lesson: Weird is not always better.
When our friends at J-List offered me my first chance to try the intriguing Japanese candy Hi-chew, I figured, why not go for the most exotic? So custard pudding flavor and Strawberry Cheesecake seemed like the obvious candidates. I mean, when have you looked at a display of American candy and seen something in cheesecake flavor? Never. There you go.
As you can read in my previous review, the custard pudding flavor was fun and interesting. But I felt fine giving the rest of the package away. And the strawberry cheesecake….
Well, the strawberry aspect of the flavor of this is good. But the cheesecake part – not so much. Here’s the thing – it is true that cheese is basically sour milk. And it is true that cheesecake has cheese in it. But, a candy that tastes kind of like sour milk – the logic may be impeccable, but, no thanks.
However, there’s an important bit of foreshadowing in one of those previous paragraphs: The strawberry flavor was good. And this comes to the lesson I learned. Hi-chew also comes in a wide variety of normal, fruit flavors. And those are the ones I should have tried.
Because I stumbled across a package of the Mango flavor – as you see in the photo above, packaged for the English-speaking market. And, OH MY GOD.
I am a sucker for mango, almost as much as for chocolate, but similarly, I am very picky about it, very hard to satisfy. Well, this is FANTASTIC. You know how when you eat a perfectly ripe mango, it’s almost like having perfume in your mouth would be if having perfume in your mouth were a good thing?
The flavor of this candy is so vivid and aromatic and realistically mango-y, I have no idea how they do it. Actually, from reading the ingredients, part of how they do it is by using real mango, but how they pack it into this tiny, odd-textured candy…. It’s magic, or something. Unbelievable.
The only downside of this – and it’s a big one – is that I bought this at a once-a-year festival, and I only bought ONE package, and they’re not offering the mango flavor on J-List at the moment. Weep for me, people. This is truly tragic.
The verdict is that you should definitely try Hi-chew, but start with the fruit flavors, even if you can’t get mango. And if you can get mango, send me some!
Buy Hi-chew Online:
- at Jlist
You can buy 10 packs of the mango flavor on Amazon.com.
http://www.amazon.com/Morinaga-Hi-chew-Mango-Candy-Display/dp/B0018ZQAJQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=hpc&qid=1241717958&sr=8-1
May 7th, 2009 at 12:40 pmi like hi-chew in general, but the mango flavor is truly something special. i don’t know how they manage to make it taste so much like a real mango, but it’s really impressive!
May 7th, 2009 at 12:53 pmTen packs… oh dear.
May 7th, 2009 at 7:52 pmI tried to comment on your eiffel bonbons post… do you have any idea what candy I’m looking for?
-I had them in junior high in French class, they were great!! My teacher sold eiffel bonbons and toblerones and some kind of candy everyone called candy bandaids that had a light lemon flavor, I still haven’t figured out what the “bandaid” candy was called but it was fantastic.
May 22nd, 2009 at 1:36 pm[...] candy review from me. I discovered that my local Japanese markets are now carrying the Mango flavor Hi-Chew that I reviewed so enthusiastically a while ago. I bought a large quantity and felt that now, my [...]
July 6th, 2009 at 2:00 am[...] most one that tastes more like mango than it tastes like another fruit. They’re not like the mango Hi-Chew I reviewed recently, for instance, where you taste them and aren’t surprised to read in the [...]
August 12th, 2009 at 2:00 am