Chocri is a German company that plans to open for business in the US in the new year. Their website allows you to design your own chocolate bars – white, dark, or milk, with your choice of additions, which range from the normal (nuts, fruit) to the more exotic (gold balls, gummy bears, spices).

When they asked if I’d like to order some sample bars to review, I was all “heck yeah,” but as I delved into the site, I began to realize that I am not exactly the ideal customer for this sort of thing. Because A, I have very strong opinions about what flavors go together, and B, I am overwhelmed by too many choices.

So, on the one hand the only things I would be sure I would like were the totally traditional choices like milk chocolate with crispy rice. On the other hand I knew that was totally not in the spirit of the thing. What would be the point of getting a combination that I could get anywhere?

Beyond that, I no longer remember exactly what went on in my mind as I clicked around the options on their site – so many that they claim that more than ten billion combinations are possible. So when the following bars arrived, I thought some crazy person had ordered them:

• White with red rice and mango cubes
• Milk with coconut shavings, candied rose petals and a marzipan rose
• Dark with pecans, sour cherries and orange pepper

Well, on the bright side, they sure aren’t anything you could walk into a store and buy, right?

The first thing I noticed about these bars is that they are larger than they looked to me on the website, and so this also meant that some of the toppings were surprising. Red rice is not small rice crispy things, for example – they’re rice crackers.

Another thing is that the toppings are really on top, not mixed in. (I guess this means if you really didn’t like something, you could pick it off the top. But this would also totally not be in the spirit of the thing.) They are also distributed beautifully but not necessarily evenly throughout the bar. You get big pieces of pecan decorating the top, not little pieces chopped up and thoroughly mixed in.

Now for a little rant: In America, companies that specialize in this sort of thing tend to let the quality of the underlying product slide, figuring it will get lost in the mass of toppings anyway. I’m thinking for example of certain places that specialize in letting you mix toppings into pretty lousy ice cream; pizza tends to be another good example of this.

I was hoping I could expect better of the Germans. I am really not interested in eating a lot of fancy nonsense mixed into mediocre chocolate. Happily, that is not what they are selling.

The white chocolate is particularly excellent, with a great creamy texture and no cheap off-flavors. If you think you don’t like white chocolate, please make sure that you’ve had some that’s as good as this before you give up on it.

As for the toppings I put in this one… the red rice crackers, OK they look cool, but are not really what I want in chocolate. That’s not their fault, it was my choice. The mango chunks are very small, dried and candied tasting. They are fine, and the combination is fine. I have to say though that what I like about this is the bites that happen to have no topping and are just really good white chocolate. Which is, yes, not in the spirit of the thing. So sue me.

The dark chocolate is also good. It’s just a hair sweeter than I like, but the texture is great – I prefer it not too hard and snappy. The pecans and dried cherries are good, and fortunately this one is not a totally insane combination. The orange pepper doesn’t make much of an impression on me one way or another, but that’s fine.

The milk chocolate is my least favorite, but I am very hard to please when it comes to milk chocolate. It has to be much darker than normal, which this isn’t. Candied rose petals add even more sweetness, which this doesn’t need. I’d love to try those with dark chocolate, though.

The marzipan rose is lovely, as are many of the other decorations they offer – these are going to make an interesting gift-giving option for the chocolate lover.

To sum up, despite the fact that they were ordered by a crazy person, I am kind of sorry I mentioned to some other people that I would share these samples with them, especially the white chocolate. I think I may have to temporarily lose track of where I put that one.

• Chocri Website (German)

Taza to Go is a ready-to-drink chocolate extravagance from Valor, the renowned Spanish chocolatier founded in 1881. The name comes from getting chocolate “a la taza” in Spain, which means in a small white ceramic cup. It’s an amazing, thick, rich dark chocolate drink served hot. I would call it hot chocolate, but that’s like calling the Casa Milà in Barcelona an apartment. It’s only hot chocolate in the sense that it’s chocolate, which is hot. It’s more like a melted dark chocolate bar with just enough milk added to make it into a thick, drinkable liquid. It’s especially popular at breakfast, but also as a dessert treat.

Okay, great, but what will it taste like when it comes, not from a freshly melted chocolate bar and milk from your master chocolate barista, but from a premixed, imported pouch? Extremely delicious, if properly prepared.

As I sit down with my third cup of Taza to Go, I’m struck by how making this the right way really pays dividends. Let me explain.

When you first open the pouch and pour this dark goodness out, it looks more or less like pudding. Of course I took a spoonful. It was good, but not crazy good. The chocolate side of it was fine, but the reconstituted milk was a little weird. Since it was so thick, I then decided that I should add enough milk to make it like regular hot chocolate. I did that. It was very good hot chocolate, but something was still a little off.

So, finally, I took the pouch directions seriously and simply heated up the thick pudding. Specifically, I put three tablespoons in a small-ish coffee mug (Ikea 365+, you know the one) and heated it for 25 seconds. Removing the mug, I saw that the chocolate had risen about 3/4 of the way up, so 35 seconds probably would have made a molten lava mess. Twenty-five seconds (1000 watt oven) was perfect. The heat had liquefied the Taza to Go, and I gave it a stir.

Time for a sip of this premier drinking chocolate, as it’s intended to be enjoyed. Wow. Now we’re talking. And sipping. Then slurping, then licking of mug. Then making of another mug. This is a wonderful treat. It’s a very strong chocolate flavor, but smooth and with several flavor notes to keep things interesting. There’s also a tinge of cinnamon. You can really taste the quality of Valor chocolate in this Taza to Go super drink.

So, you may not be used to drinking hot chocolate like this – very thick, and very rich. But once you try it, it’s good times all around. It’s like the bottom of the mug in normal hot chocolate where the chocolate has settled. Except this is nothing but thick and rich, and it’s got just an exceptional chocolate taste – not that junky flavor you get from low cacao content, cheap fillers, or corn syrup.

Although a bit pricey ($12 for 900 ML/30.43 oz), this big pouch makes many delicious, concentrated servings. I highly recommend this fantastic chocolate drink, especially as fall leaves begin to fly.

Candy Addict received this product as a sample from the manufacturer. No payment was received for this review and all opinions represent an unbiased view of the product.

• Valor Website

You’ll see Swiss conglomerate Nestle’s Milkybars in England just about everywhere. In the U.S., they’re much harder to find – even the Nestle USA website doesn’t list them anywhere. So when I saw one in World Market the other day, I snagged it. Even though I’m not a huge white chocolate fan, I’m curious to try this candy that’s so popular across the pond.

In keeping with recent trends to make foods with fewer suspect ingredients, Nestle makes a big fuss about the “all natural ingredients” in this candy, even explaining the ingredients in little parenthetical remarks. “Whole cow’s milk (that’s been dried).” Okay… thanks. Skeptics will reply that “milk” and “sugar” don’t reveal the whole story, since cows injected with antibiotics or sugar cane plants sprayed with pesticides lead to measurably unnatural byproducts (this is why organic foods can be safer and better tasting), but at least the artificial flavorings and colors are absent from the Milkybar, right?

Yeah, fine, but how about the taste?

This variety of milkybar is called “chunky,” but its little squares are pretty small to average for a segmented candy bar with such a moniker. (Maybe I’m still recovering from experiencing the Giant Bite Gummy Bear.) Anyway, they do break off nicely for a small bite to throw in your mouth.

And now I realize why these bars sell like socks in Iceland – the Milkybar is darn tasty. It’s got a very creamy texture and mouth feel, for starters. Secondly, the milk flavor is fresh and prominent. And third, it’s like eating the candy bar version of Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk. Yummy!

So, yes, the Milkybar is very sweet, but sometimes you want that sugar bomb experience, right? And if you’ve ever dipped a spoon into sweetened condensed milk and licked away, dreaming of a candy bar that could capture that unique kind of milky goodness, this bar comes pretty close. It may not have the very slight hint of being cooked to almost the caramel stage as Eagle Brand seems to, but it’s got a nice halo of genuine vanilla that really works for me.

Even if you don’t usually like white chocolate, I recommend you give the Milkybar a try. If you can take the sweetness level, the creamy reward is substantial.

• Nestle Milkybar UK Website

As I’ve said before, I can’t resist an animal-shaped candy. And when I saw these Jelly Rats in Ikea, I figured that even if these weren’t good to eat, they would be a good joke for my reptile-keeper friends. After all, why should the animals be the only ones who get to eat rats?

But after my recent surprising positive experience with the Trader Joe’s Gummy Tummy Penguin, I was more open-minded to the possibility that these might actually be good to eat. So I tried them myself.

There seem to be four flavors, of the yellow, light-green, orange and red varieties. They are fruit flavors, in a vague way. I found the red kind of nasty and the orange dull, when orange is usually my favorite fake-fruit flavor. The other two are innocuous.

The texture is pretty soft, only a little chew to it. And they’re only vague rat-shaped. Basically these are tolerable, but they’re no gummy tummy penguins.

I was also intrigued by Godis Gula Snören because, well, they are called Godis Gula Snören. I guess this is real Swedish, you couldn’t make this stuff up, right? Also, toffee flavor laces seemed exotic, if not necessarily a good idea. But I was willing to give it a try.

I have to admit that I have not eaten candy laces in, hmm, decades? And they were never one of my favorite things even as a child. I even had to ask my assistant whether it was normal that these are hollow in the middle. He assures me that this is how candy laces are. Well, now, isn’t that cool – so long and skinny and yet hollow in the middle! If you run into someone who’s just arrived, like, from Mars, and would find this as surprising as I do, tell them they should definitely check this out.

As for the taste – yeah, like toffee. Vaguely butterscotchy, although definitely artificial – there’s no real butter or anything in them. I mean, you’re not expecting miracles with something like this. The texture is fine, a little chewy, not at all gummy. Now I see that maybe I would have liked candy laces as a child if they hadn’t come in such horrible flavors.

I would not buy these again, because I can think of better ways to consume butterscotch flavor, but they are cheap and worth a try. And, like in the photo, they look exactly like spaghetti. There has to be some cake-decorating or craft application that this would be useful for. If you can figure out a reason to decorate a cake with a plate of spaghetti, you should definitely go get some of these, and even more definitely, send us a picture.

• Ikea Website

Back when I was doing the Great Chocolate Experiments, I tried a few unusual combinations of chocolate and fruits like sun-dried tomato and dried mango. But chocolate and kiwi is a new one on me, so I was intrigued when I received this Whittaker’s Kiwi Fruit chocolate bar from a friend (the same friend who was my Research Assistant for the Great Chocolate Experiments, if anyone’s keeping score). My friend’s brother left her with a few too many edible souvenirs from his trip to New Zealand, so I was happy to take this one off her hands – for the good of this website, of course.

Described on the package as “A New Zealand Favourite,” this paperback-sized block of milk chocolate (a whole 250 grams, or around half a pound) is divided into tiny bite-sized squares. Break one off, and you’ll find it’s studded with little green chunks. Dried kiwi? Not according to the ingredients, which contain only kiwi fruit and apple purees, making it more likely that the green bits are a jelly formed from dried fruit puree – fruit leather, in other words. (Chocolate-covered fruit leather – why didn’t I think of that?)

The milk chocolate is nice – not overly sweet or milky. The kiwi bits are quite sour, even if they do remind me more of a sour apple flavor than kiwi, and their tartness cuts through the sweetness of the milk chocolate, keeping it from being cloying. The chocolate also cuts down in the acidity and sourness of the kiwi pieces, making this an excellent pairing, though I can see that the combination of acid and chocolate might not be everybody’s thing.

So if you ever get a chance to visit the land of Hobbits, tropical fruit and fuzzy flightless birds, why not give this bar a try? This New Zealand favorite might just wind up as one of yours as well. (At the very least, it will make an interesting souvenir for your siblings to foist off on their friends.)

• Whittaker’s Website

One of the things I always find interesting when traveling in the United States is the prevalence of Hispanic culture compared to in Canada – I guess Mexican immigrants who make it over the border into the United States are usually content to stop there rather than venturing further north.

In my limited experience, it seems to me that the “ethnic” section of American grocery stores always has a wide selection of Mexican foods, while where I live, you’re more likely to find Vietnamese rice noodles or Thai and Indian curry pastes there, with Mexican foods relegated to a small (and totally inauthentic) selection of taco seasoning mixes, burrito shells and salsas. Needless to say, in this city, Mexican candy is pretty much nonexistent.

I have to admit, I haven’t been terribly broken up about this fact – Mexican candy’s widespread use of chili, tamarind and salt (all fine ingredients – just not necessarily in a candy setting), its distressing tendency to get contaminated with lead, and a generally negative impression from the Internet food scene, have ensured that I haven’t had much desire to add Mexican treats to my candy repertoire.

Since Mexican candy is so far off my radar, I was quite surprised by the number of Mexican candy companies at the All Candy Expo – though I probably shouldn’t have been, since Spanish is practically a second official language in the Expo’s home city of Chicago. In addition to the expected assortment of chili, lime and salt-dusted items, I managed to pick up two different brands of a candy I’d never seen before – mazapan.

Both brands, de la Rosa and Mi Mazapan, were practically identical, each a flat, beige disc, about 1/4 inch thick, with ingredients that consisted of just peanuts, sugar and artificial flavor. With its lack of hot, sour and spicy ingredients, it was already defying my negative stereotypes about Mexican candy. Only – what was it?

A quick Googling informed me that there’s a reason “mazapan” sounds like “marzipan” – it’s basically the peanut version of the favorite European almond paste. I’ve never met a peanut butter candy I didn’t like, so I decided to dig in.

Both items got a little crushed from being jostled around in my bag of candy samples – when I unwrapped them, they crumbled to pieces. Though for all I know, they might have done that anyway. Both brands gave off a strong, sweet scent of vanilla when unwrapped, but it seemed like that dissipated rather quickly, leaving behind a scent of roasted peanuts, and that’s all.

Flavor and texture-wise, the two brands were practically identical. Since both my samples had crumbled to pieces, I ate the larger chunks first, then the leftover crumbs. (It turns out eating these in bed was a dumb idea, as I had to shake a bunch of sugary crumbs out of my sheets afterward). The texture is not at all like marzipan – there’s nothing soft or spreadable about it. The dry, crumbly, powdery mazapan dissolves in your mouth like powdered sugar, leaving little gritty bits of peanut behind.

At first, the flavor is quite sweet, like eating the aforementioned powdered sugar, but with a strong vanilla flavor (must be the artificial flavor in the ingredients). Then the toasty peanut aftertaste kicks in. These aren’t salty at all, unlike most peanut candies I’ve tried. Sugar and vanilla are the dominant flavors, as well as that nutty, roasty peanut undertone. (I want to say the Mi Mazapan one’s sweeter with more of a vanilla and less of a peanut note, but I think they’re more or less identical.)

Well, I actually found a Mexican candy I like – for the first time, I’m disappointed they don’t sell these in my town. I guess that means something coated in chili and salt is next on my list.

• de la Rosa Website (Spanish)

Buy Mazapan Online:

• at Candy Crate

I have a ton of candy left to review from the All Candy Expo, but I decided I needed a small break from upcoming candy to review some of the candy I already had that happens to have a short lifespan.

My good friend Greg was kind enough to pick up some candy for me from his recent expedition to Europe, which resulted in me receiving a box of Pierre Marcolini truffles. For those of you not familiar with Mr. Marcolini’s work, he is a Parisian chocolatier who travels the world in order to find the best ingredients and flavors for his chocolate.

The round, 15-piece box containing small, spherical truffles dusted in cocoa and set in what looks like a couture hatbox is valued at almost $50, so these are most likely out of your typical Candy Addict’s price range. I was super excited to try them knowing I would otherwise probably never taste such a thing.

Truffe Du Jour: The Truffe Du Jour is Pierre Marcolini’s tribute to the traditional truffle with a dark chocolate ganache made from cocoa beans from Venezuela and rolled in cocoa powder. This piece has an incredibly soft ganache center with a slightly harder shell, but one that is still very pliable. The chocolate quality is very refined, embracing the concept of bitter more than sweet. The taste of this chocolate is an essence, almost like an idea or a hint; rather than scream “I am a Hershey’s Bar!” it dares you to take a bite and figure it out. This chocolate is for food purists.

Truffe Champagne: The Truffe Champagne has a milk chocolate center made with cream and champagne sourced from Saint Martin D’Ablois in the Champagne, France. This piece is softer on the tongue and a bit sweeter because of the milk chocolate involved, a brilliant choice as dark chocolate would drown out the subtle flavors. The champagne is a note amid a chorus of flavors – important, but hardly the centerpiece. Despite containing alcohol, it doesn’t really taste of it. This one was surprisingly easy to enjoy without treading in overpowering waters. My favorite.

Truffe Tonka: The Truffe Tonka has a liquid caramel center infused with the South American spice from the Tonka bean. Enrobed in dark chocolate couverture and covered with deliciously crunchy cocoa nibs, this truffle’s center has a sweet and spicy vanilla-like aroma and herbal fragrance. I was a bit surprised to see tonka bean as an ingredient, considering it’s banned in the U.S. for possessing an anticoagulant property that can cause death if consumed in large amounts. Despite it being the fugu of chocolate, it retains a cinnamon essence that meshes well with vanilla. The flavors involved are very subtle but sophisticated, partly because tonka bean is such a complex flavor that it certainly makes any piece of chocolate quite intriguing.

After eating a box of these, I can say that I do think these are fairly priced… but I happen to like this sort of chocolate. None of the pieces are sweet or bursting with potent flavors. That is because Pierre Marcolini enjoys making you think when you consume his products. What exactly is in this piece? What does this remind me of? How is this different and more surprising than anything I have ever tasted? These answers are all deeply personal and individual, but a pleasant surprise from something as mundane as a gorgeously packaged box of truffles.

• Peirre Marcolini Truffe Website

Where I currently reside, Munich, Germany, chocolate is in abundance. All different kinds and textures; milk, dark, fruit-flavored, white, crunchy – the list goes on. All too often, a chocolate craving leads to a serious dilemma: what to buy and which flavor will satisfy even the most intense chocolate craving. Recently, while in the throws of a craving, I ventured out to find something for a fix which led me to a new discovery… perhaps a new love.

Before I divulge the sordid details of my affair, let me just explain that I’ve never been a fan of the chocolate/nut combination. In fact, I usually find myself picking nuts out of chocolate/nut sweets. I’ve been taunted for my dissection of Peanut M&Ms, carefully biting open the M&M and prying out the nut in order to enjoy the chocolate with the crunchy candy shell. I even recall a date or two ending early over my spitting out the peanuts from a Snickers bar and almonds from a Hershey bar. As I said before, it isn’t a pairing that works for me. Men are replaceable – the experience of enjoying chocolate in the moment is not. The coarse, dry and sometimes bitterness of the nut doesn’t couple well with chocolate. Nuts are hearty… earthy… chocolate should be left alone, far from the likes of the nut.

Then I met Hanuta.

Hanuta is manufactured by the behemoth Italian confectionaire Ferrero – well known over the world for Nutella, Ferrero Rocher, Kinder Eggs, and oddly matched Tic-Tacs. As evidenced by the first two products, these guys know hazelnuts and chocolate.

I didn’t expect to like Hanuta, let alone love Hanuta. Unlike their flamboyant cousin – Ferrero Rocher and its iconic gleaming gold foil packaging – the packaging on Hanuta is rather plain with just a white wrapper and a hazelnut on the lower left side. Upon seeing the hazelnut, I figured I could just keep my d-list fling – the Peanut M&M – but something about it, something lured me. I took the plunge and my chocolate palate has forever changed.

Hanuta has a dark chocolate-hazelnut center sandwiched between thin square-shaped sweet wafers. The texture of the center is creamy with a hint of crispness provided by the nuts and the wafers. (Normally, I’m not keen on wafers – I typically pass on them while remembering the ill colored pink and yellow wafers that rested on my grandmother’s coffee table for months… maybe even years.) The wafers on Hanuta are a perfect compliment to the creamy center. The wafers are lightly sweetened, providing a slight crunch without diverting from the essence of the chocolate-hazelnut middle. The nut flavor is subtle, yet apparent enough to flavor the center beyond pure dark chocolate.

On the chocolate craving satiation scale, I’d give Hanuta a seven out of 10. The chocolate is quite dark and lends to a rich, hearty treat. The chocolate is rather exquisite tasting and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was produced on the same manufacturing line as its more expensive cousin, Ferrero Rocher. One caveat – both the chocolate in Ferrero Rocher and Hanuta leave me with a strange wax-like substance in my mouth long after eating. It doesn’t necessarily taste bad – but this unusual phenomenon results in my seven rating and not an eight or nine.

Two treats come in the standard Hanuta package, although most stores sell mini individually wrapped Hanuta treats; a bag contains approximately 15-20 minis. After opening the plain packaging, each treat shows its Ferrero genes and is wrapped in gold foil as if preparing a royal treasure. Trust me, it adds to the experience. A chocolate maybe not fit for a queen, but a baroness at minimum.

All in all, the chocolate hazelnut combination coupled with the mild texture is a winning duo. For a non-chocolate/nut person, this seemed like an impossible feat. However, nutty or not… Hanuta here I come. And, hopefully my Peanut M&Ms won’t be too wounded from the neglect.

• Hanuta Website

Of course, if you did have to spend the rest of your life there, at least they have everything you need. There are beds to sleep in, and food to eat. You could even raise a family – the cafeteria sells jars of baby food and provides a bottle warmer.

So when I saw these chocolate bars, only my second thought was that they were nicely packaged and cheap. My first thought was “at least if I can’t get out, I won’t have to live the rest of my life without chocolate.”

But what would that life be like, for someone as devoted to chocolate as I am?

Ikea sells three varieties, dark, milk, and milk with hazelnuts. I am not that big a fan of hazelnuts, but I chose that kind anyway. At 99 cents a bar, I figured that this was not going to be the highest quality chocolate, so it would need some help. And of course, there was also the consideration that nuts have protein, and if you were lost in Ikea for life, you might need the nourishment, like in the middle of the night when the cafeteria was closed.

The chocolate itself is about what you’d expect from a relatively inexpensive European chocolate. It’s not awful, but it’s unsatisfying. With a good strongly flavored chocolate, I can eat one or two squares of a bar and stop. With this bar, I felt like I had to keep eating the whole thing – I never felt that “had enough chocolate” sensation.

The texture was a little bit waxy. There’s “butterfat” in the ingredients – it’s not all cocoa butter – which I imagine is to blame. The hazelnuts are chopped up small, unlike in some bars where the nuts are whole or large pieces. I liked this, since it means you get some nuts in every bite. This is all the more important here since the chocolate is only OK, and the nuts provide some additional interest.

The final verdict: This chocolate is good enough to keep you going till you find your way out of the maze of Ikea back to the real world. And if you’re a real chocolate fiend, it might give you just that much more inspiration to persist in making your escape and getting your hands on something better.

• Ikea Website

For a while it looked like you’d never see another non-chocolate 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 life was complete. Well, as far as non-chocolate candy goes, anyway.

But curiosity got the better of me. After all, a package only costs a buck. If the mango is so good, maybe there are other wonders that I don’t want to miss, right?

So I grabbed a Lemon and Melon at the store. And then while ordering something else from J-List, I saw a flavor called “American Cherry” and wondered what the heck that was, and it only took one click to find out, right?

Melon is interesting in that in Japan, it’s used as a flavor in ways that don’t seem to occur to Americans. We eat actual melons of all kinds, and we make things that are watermelon-flavored. But we don’t make soda and candy in the flavor of other kinds of melons like the Japanese do.

I like Japanese melon soda, so Melon Hi-Chew seemed like a good idea, but, it turned out, not so much. The picture on the front is of a cantaloupe while the flavor is more like honeydew, which is disorienting, but that’s not it. There’s just something not right about it. Maybe it’s not tart enough? I can’t complain that it tastes like melon artificial flavoring – I mean, I’m sure it does, but I’m sure the soda does too, and I like the soda.

So, I don’t know, but I will not be buying this one again. I didn’t even eat the whole little piece after biting off half of it. I am afraid that the introduction of this candy is not going to change the American mind about making non-watermelon melon flavored sweets.

In contrast, lemon is a normal flavor – in fact, lemon is only a flavor, because who eats whole lemons as a fruit? – common to both cultures. And I liked the Lemon Hi-Chew much better. It’s a good strong lemon-peely flavor like marmalade or lemon curd.

The American cherry is something of a mystery. This one is a Japanese import unlike the last two, so I can’t read most of the packaging. What I can decipher doesn’t make a darn bit of sense. So if there’s any explanation of what’s American about it, it’s lost on me.

I wondered if maybe they meant the kind of sour cherry that you get in pie, since pie is so American, but that’s the last thing this tastes like. I’m not really sure what this candy does taste like, in fact. I’m not sure I’d identify it as cherry, even, if I hadn’t read the package. And when given to a test subject who was not told what flavor was supposed to be, his guess was “Peach?”

On the bright side, it’s just as well, I won’t have to be moaning and rending my garments about yet another wonderful Japanese food I can’t get in this country. I’ve got my mango Hi-Chew and maybe that really is all I need.

• Hi-Chew Website

Buy Hi-Chew Online:

• at Jlist