06.24.06
Rennyu Ichigo
I’ve eaten almost all of these popsicle critters in the box and I’m still trying to figure them out. Basically, they are like a reverse creamsicle with an extra added tasty hat. The outside is a smooth vanilla wrap of something…well I suppose maybe stiff frozen yogurt like? I’m entirely not sure but it does taste of vanilla and has the consistency of squidgy icing or even marzipan so whatever that might be. Inside the layer of tasty vanilla whatsit is a divided core of strawberry icy pop and vanilla gooey hat. The top third is the vanilla gooey hat and it’s pretty vanilla and pretty gooey and very tasty in a vanilla frosting sort of way. The consistency is actually very much like frosting…nice warm melty frosting, which sort of boggles my mind because the rest of the pop is frozen solid. Huh.
The popsicle part of the pop is a very strawberry critter. It starts when you open the package and a romping strawberry smell comes busting out and assaults your nose. It’s a nice smelling strawberry too, very promising. So often it is the case where the smell is cashing checks the taste can’t deliver but I’m happy to say that Rennyu Ichigo goes the whole way with the strawberry goodness. The taste isn’t quite a real berry taste but it is also a step more in the direction of the fruit than the oft occurring Captain Crunchberry flavor. I’d say on a 1 to10 fresh berry scale (10 being the fruit) this would rate maybe an 8, where Crunchberry might come in at 6.5 or 7. Another thing we noticed, and this quite by accident, is that Rennyu Ichigo not only leads with the strawberry but there is a definite after berry linger as well. My couch smelled decidedly of strawberry for about a day before I figured out that it was really the dead popsicle stick that I had chucked in a nearby convenient glass the night before. I’m not talking a faint scent on the fading breeze either, I was actively looking for a box of almost strawberries tucked under the couch or something of that nature. That’s some powerful strawberry. Booyaw for strawberry!
The freezy pop texture of Rennyu Ichigo is where I might deduct some pea points. Again, I’m not quite sure on this either as the texture was strangely chunky in a way popsicles usually aren’t. The inside freezy pop core was composed of lots of tiny strawberry flavored ice cube bits which broke apart when you bit in to them. Normally I’m not a fan of this sort of thing, but normally the icy bits have no flavor but icy bit. These were still definitely strawberry and that was pleasantly surprising. Also, the crumbly core does have the outer layer of vanilla whatsit holding it together so perhaps it’s part of the freezy pop design to be that way. Whatever, it seemed to work for the pop so no pea points taken away. All in all Rennyu Ichigo are a nice pleasant freezy pop experience and I’d rate them at 3.75 if I fractionalized peas that far but I don’t. So, think of this as a very highly
rated 3.5 Wasabi Peas out of a possible 5.
