These fab new sweets from The Natural Confectionery Co are also a bit of a new idea. They are trying to be more than a bag of sweets, and have combined a bit of fun in the bag in that you can combine flavours and try and work out what the end taste result might be. There is a mini menu on the back of the bag to help you out too, as you puzzle over the flavours. The sweets come in two shapes, which are hooks and loops so that you can combine them easily by stacking them.
I poured out the contents of the bag to survey my options and was immediately disappointed. I realised that there weren’t that many sweets in the bag at all and that the variation of shapes wasn’t equal as there were more hooks than loops. More than that though, the biggest disappointment was that there were no cinnamon sweets in the bag. Cinnamon is one of my favourite flavours and when I heard that there was a sweet with this spice I was quite excited at the prospect of trying them, so having none at all in the bag was a big shame.
Still, I put together what flavours I had and stacked what I could to try the menu on the back. I also wanted to try the flavours individually to see what the basic ingredients were like.
Green – This had a zesty lime taste. It was fresh, tasty and sweet. It wasn’t too strong, but was lovely and natural.
Orange – This was a warmer orange flavour, it had lots of sweet citrus tones and was pleasant and well balanced.
Yellow – I was expecting this to be lemon, but it is actually banana as I suspect this gives more depth for fruit combinations than too many citrus sweets. The banana flavour is mild but distinct with a nice sweet edge.
Dark Pink- This had a subtle raspberry taste, again it was sweet, but lacking the wow factor.
Red – I didn’t get one of these, but it would have been cinnamon if I had :-(
This only left me with two possible combinations from the menu with what I had left:
Lime & Raspberry – This is supposed to make Pink Lemonade. It did have a nice fruity taste, and the raspberry and lime were nice together. I’m not sure I’d necessarily think it was pink lemonade but the flavours are sort of there and it was a good combination.
Orange & Banana – This curious mix is supposed to make Bubblegum. I actually could pick up a hint of bubble gum taste with this one, and it was an enjoyable sweet. The orange tang becomes more mild, and the banana develops into a even sweeter taste which makes a good fruity mix.
In conclusion then, these sweets have good natural tastes, and the jellies are soft and easy to eat. I did like mixing the flavours as it was kind of fun stacking them together. Instead of a random selection of sweets I’d prefer a measured and balanced amount in each bag. It is a nice idea, but I think it needs bigger bags too and a larger choice of menu if it intends to compete with the likes of Jelly Belly Jelly Bean combinations.
By Cinabar