11.07.08
Hi-Chew (grape)
The best thing about The Most Korean of Asian Grocery Stores is that they carry both Hi-Chew and Mychew. Sadly, there isn’t as much of an overlap as I’d like but I did find a couple of matching flavors so I could get one of each and compare them. Or at least that’s my excuse this weekend.
Hi-Chew (grape) certainly smells like grape but it’s the smell of Grape Kool-aid – or more probably, “grape concentrated juice and flavors” as listed in the ingredients. Is there something about the flavor of grapes that makes it hard to translate in food chemistry? I was just thinking on that and a lot of “grape” things don’t taste like fresh from the vine fruit yet a lot of people don’t really mind. *shrug*
Morinaga does try though. There is a nice tartness to the grape flavor and I’d say that it is a more natural tasting grape than Kool-aid or Bubblicious but it’s still not quite that fresh grape grape. I also taste just a hint of FLAVORING, which mostly manifests in the sinuses and knocks around half heartedly. It’s mostly an afterthought annoyance flavor rather than a deal breaker but the Hi-Chew would certainly be tastier without it.
Finally, I was able to snap a close up of the white wrapped colored taffy. Neat! Also, please excuse my fingers…apparently I need to moisturize more.
Lastly, having both ‘Chews together I noticed that Morinaga does a better job with the finished product. True we’re only talking a sleeve of taffy bits but side by side the Hi-Chew is the more professional looking candy. It’s squared up better and glued together with more care. It’s also harder to get into surreptitiously so one can take a picture of the packaging and the inner goodies without having to buy two sleeves of ‘Chews. Just in case you wanted to know.
Of the Hi-Chews reviewed so far, grape is better than the Green Apple but not as good as the strawberry. Fortunately for me, that put Hi-Chew (grape) smack dab at average, although you could add a couple more fractional pea points for a slightly more than
3 wasabi peas out of a possible 5 wasabi peas Rating.
Kelly said,
November 22, 2008 at 10:33 am
Please be careful, hi-chew is under investigation in japan because they found rubber gloves in various hi-chew flavours including exported hi-chew. If i were you i wouldn’t eat it until given the all-clear. It was on Japanese nightly news a few days ago actually.
Boo said,
November 22, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Yeah, sadly I heard about the recall about a week after trying both candies mentioned in the glove incident: Green apple and Grape. This does remind me that I have to pick the leftover candies out of my candy jar at work. Thanks for letting me know!