Jelly Beans

Jelly Beans

Jellybean 001.jpg

If I get a cavity, it’s all Kira’s fault. She brought jelly beans to a meeting last week. Not dollar store jelly beans that taste like lemon Pledge, stale Tang or some alien interpretation of red fruit. No, she brought high-end gourmet jelly beans in flavours that rivaled Bertie Bott’s — only without off-putting variations like ear wax, rotten egg or spinach.

Pear, green apple and even buttered popcorn burst in my mouth. I’m ashamed to say I paid as much attention to the jelly beans as the agenda.

Being seduced by sweets isn’t unusual for me, but I normally go for cookies over candy. And despite three kinds of homemade cookies sitting right next to them, I nibbled my way through the lion’s share of jelly beans.

My enamel-dissolving encounter on Tuesday night would have been bad enough on its own, but I found myself craving these things. I tried not to think about them, but that’s like trying not to think of a pink elephant — or in this case, a pink jelly bean. By Friday night? I was the proud owner of a 900g (2 pound!!) box of gourmet jelly beans. Some shone sky blue, some glowed like gemstones and others were dead ringers for tiny polished beads of granite. Coconut, toasted marshmallow and strawberry smoothies were on this agenda. And there wasn’t a room of peers to keep my gluttony in check.

By Sunday night they were gone — all but the burn-your-tongue-hot cinnamon coals, the despised black licorice ones and, what I am forced to conclude was, an unfortunate attempt at root beer.

Good thing I didn’t read the ingredient list until I was scrounging for the last watermelon bean at the bottom of the box. Turns out I might have been safer scarfing ear wax. I knew I was in for a high dose of sugar and corn syrup, but shellac? Yes, shellac — and bees wax and other ingredients my fingers refuse to type out. Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction.

So, if we were to share a jar of jelly beans, which flavours would you arm wrestle me for and which would you be picking out of the mix and secretly feeding to the dog?

20 Comments
  • Andrew
    Posted at 11:24h, 16 March

    We had jelly beans?

  • Debbie
    Posted at 13:11h, 16 March

    Andrew is hillarious!

    My fav's are buttered popcorn, toasted coconut, and toasted marshmallow. I hate the watermellon, and black licorise.

    Just so you know, you can by them in bulk, in individual flavors.

    They are very addicting. Did you try mixing a few flavors together?

    Try combos like: chocolate & cherry to get a black forest flavour. Or Coconut and pinapple, to get a pina collada flavour. There are so many options.

    They are so much fun.

  • cheryl
    Posted at 14:00h, 16 March

    You KNOW we’d spar over the toasted coconut.

    Jelly beans are the kinds of things I would never buy, but if they’re near me I’m completely unable to control myself.

    They sure do make a pretty picture, thanks in no small part, I’m guessing, to that tasty shellac.

  • Sam
    Posted at 14:46h, 16 March

    Oh I absolutely love Jelly Belly jelly beans! My favourites are all of the non-fruity ones!

  • Christie's Corner
    Posted at 14:51h, 16 March

    I will ignore Andrew. Feel free to join me in shunning him. He ate some, too, though admittedly not as many as I did.

    Debbie, I love your combo ideas. I’m with you on the no black licorice front!!

    Cheryl, normally I am not one for jelly beans, but these were positively addictive. Tell you what. I’ll give you all my toasted coconut beans if you give me your buttered popcorn ones.

    Sam, a whole new world of jelly beans opened up for me with these. My dentist will be thrilled since I have proven I have no will power. Must. Not. Buy. More. Jelly. Beans. EVER…

  • Alison
    Posted at 15:23h, 16 March

    I love the ridiculously expensive Jelly Belly beans. I’m lucky in that I love the cinnamon ones.. combine it with a pear bean, it’s really nice!

    Licorice is definitely at the bottom, along with banana, and peanut butter. Urrrgh.

  • Christie's Corner
    Posted at 19:42h, 16 March

    Alison, had I only known you liked the cinnamon ones. All mine have a bit out of them since I mistook them for raspberry. Like the idea of toning the heat down with pear. Should have tried that.

  • danamccauley
    Posted at 20:10h, 16 March

    Don’t worry. My son has eaten thousands of these jelly beans over the last couple of years (he loves them and always gets some for Christmas (and by some I mean enough for 30 kids) and he hasn’t died of shellac poisoning yet!

    He’s a jelly belly fan but the Shopper’s Drug Mart version pass his muster, too.

    Me, I like the old fashioned, plain and boring ones That said, a few years ago I had some that Jolly Rancher made and they were mighty fine!

  • trixie
    Posted at 21:00h, 16 March

    I will happily take everyone’s black licorice jelly beans (and put the calories directly on my butt of course).

  • Christie's Corner
    Posted at 09:23h, 17 March

    Dana, glad to know I’ll survive my bean binge. Kira bought a high-end brand, but my 2-pound bucket came from Shoppers. They were great, except for the Root Beer ones, which were vile. And I like root beer.

    Trixie, Debbie and I will be shipping you our black licorice rejects. I put enough calories on my butt with the other flavours.

  • anna
    Posted at 17:56h, 17 March

    I love Jelly Bellies – there was a candy store in the mall I used to work in, and I’d buy bulk bags of my favorite flavor mixes every week or so. I love their sour flavors, and I REALLY love the red apple flavor, too. They’ve had some awesome seasonal ones, their mint mix and pumpkin pie are hard-to-find favorites of mine. The only one I can’t stand is peanut butter. Yuck.

  • Christie's Corner
    Posted at 08:50h, 18 March

    Anna, you seem to have company on the peanut butter jelly bean front, which is ironic since PB&J is a popular combination. The pumpkin pie one sounds intriguing.

  • Divawrites
    Posted at 09:01h, 18 March

    Green…I’ll pick out the green ones every time. Same with jujubes. Hate the red, love the green, will tolerate orange, and I’m in the anything but black column as well.

    I don’t know that I’ve ever had the high end jelly beans, so I have nothing to compare to.

  • jodi (bloomingwriter)
    Posted at 22:32h, 18 March

    They’re awesome, aren’t they? And word to Shoppers being just as good. Or in the case of the popcorn one, just as gross. Gawd, that is hideous. It is the only one I throw OUT. Well, I would a banana one too, but haven’t encountered one. I like the jalapeno, juicy pear, cinnamon, root beer and peach ones, but also anything chocolate or mocha/coffee. They’re definitely addictive, which is why I rarely buy them.

  • va loans
    Posted at 17:32h, 09 April

    How fun! The popcorn and butter caught me off guard, but the peach is the best.

  • Christie's Corner
    Posted at 11:39h, 11 April

    VA, the buttered popcorn caught me off guard too. I thought it was going to be lemon. But I LOVED it. And yes, the peach ones are great too.

  • SpookyMama
    Posted at 03:05h, 19 April

    I’ll take the Black Licorice ones! the pear ones are also at the top of my list. At the bottom are the fruit punch ones (tutti fruitti and island punch) and the caramel apple 😛

  • Christie's Corner
    Posted at 22:31h, 19 April

    SpookyMama, you can have my black licorice ones and I’ll take your caramel apple ones. Sound like a fair trade?

  • Manize
    Posted at 22:01h, 13 July

    I cannot understand why it is included in a gourmet pack of such delicious flavors … the black jelly bean AKA black licorice AKA the one I always toss out if I can help it b/c I don’t like the flavor.

    For some reason there always seems to be about 4 or 5 of these in a pack of jelly beans. And here I was in a multi-flavor popping frenzy (usually I eat them one at a time) and every few handfuls or so I’d get the black jelly bean.

    Then a philosophical question arose: the fine people at Jelly Belly must know what they are doing, right?

    I mean after all, they produce many flavors of jelly bean (have you ever seen the Harry Potter ones, including booger, vomit, and fish?) and the black jelly bean is always included. There must be some people who actually like the flavor – my mother-in-law does come to think of it. These thoughts brought me into further contemplation about a book I started reading called

  • Charmian Christie
    Posted at 17:30h, 15 July

    If I ruled the jelly bean world, there would be no black licorice jelly beans in a gourmet pack — or non-gourmet pack for that matter. They would still exist, but all on their own. Clearly labeled. This way the licorice lovers could feast without contaminating other flavours. Harsh, but fair, I think.