This gummy candy was released as part of a promotional campaign in which one could win a date on a white horse with a "prince". By "prince", they mean some smiling dork in a weird costume and by "white horse", they mean a carriage being pulled by one. The winner of the contest could have an awkward encounter and some inane small talk about apple pies with the actor who pretended to be an object of romantic desire.
Why are apple pies coming into the mix? Well, it appears that "love" tastes like apple. When I bought this package of gummy candy at Nijiya market (for $2.19/206 yen), I didn't know what they were going to taste like and the clerk we asked said she didn't know either. If I had thought for a second, or used some other part of my brain, I would have looked at the ingredients list which helpfully lists "apple juice" among the many chemicals and sugars used to create these vaguely heart-shaped blobs.
When I opened the packet, still oblivious to the composition of the contents, I thought they smelled like super strong pear, but the flavor was much more clearly apple. In fact, it's not just apple, but double strength applesauce flavor with a citric acid bite on the end. Though I like apples in general, these are a bit too strong for me. I also like Pure gummy candy quite a lot, but this one absolutely comes in as the least enjoyable one I've ever had.
I'm sorry, Kanro, but love definitely doesn't taste like apple to me. In fact, I'd much rather it tasted like orange. If there is any balance in the universe, come next setsubun, there will be a "hate" candy to represent the yang to the love candy's ying. I'm voting that hate taste like the darkest of dark cherry that they can get their hands on, but I'm guessing they'd go for something like durian.
2 comments:
I brought a packet of these last year, and thought the taste was quite strange. It tasted a bit like apple, but also like grapes. Did you get the red color hearts in the packet as well? I felt the red ones were better than the white ones.
I didn't get a red one, unfortunately. I thought they smelled and tasted a bit like pears, but I think when you're dealing with stronger distillations of flavors, apple, pear, and grape can all seem similar. There also may be grape sugar in them and that could be a part of what you tasted.
I figured out they were apple from the ingredients list, but also from translating the web site in which they mentioned apple as a part of it. It seemed silly to me to have a mystery flavor and reveal it on their web site, but I guess they figure that, if you're curious enough to check, then you deserve to know. ;-)
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