To sum up Meiji Marble in a concise way is to call them the Japanese M&Ms. They’re little chocolate pastilles covered with a colorful candy shell. I usually see them sold in single tubes, which I think is a nice packaging idea. I’ve also seen them sold in little boxes, often in different flavors. Marble has a cute little set of mascots, as do most Japanese candies, and a little cartoon pup is what I spot most. I wonder if he has a name.
Popping open the tube the Marble pieces pour out with a nice full sound. All the colors are matte and desaturated. The come in pink, yellow, powder blue, olive green orange and red. Individually they are pretty, but together the feel like a poorly chosen rainbow, as the colors feel mismatched.
The chocolate is sweet and milky, but the overall sense I get is of fake hot cocoa. There’s not depth to the flavor, and all I get is a tease of chocolate wanna-be tastes, then a big throat burn from the sweetness.
The flavors of the Marbles are inconsistent. Some of them taste bland, others of chocolate, and some taste oddly of coffee. The textures were all over the charts too. Many felt greasy while others were perfectly smooth and rich feeling on my tongue. This certainly made for an interesting eating experience, I never quite knew what I was going to get.
These are no replacement for M&Ms, especially since Marble end up being more expensive because of the import costs. Still, if I can find them in the rarer flavors, such a the fruit varieties, I’ll fork over for them. But if we’re talking the regular chocolate kind, I’ll keep to the better and more domestic choice.
Rating: Will Eat Again
Links Meiji Website
Wow, can you believe it’s already been a year? I sure can’t!
I want to thank all my readers, whether they’ve stopped by just for a glance to those who regularly check back everyday. This blog is all for you. 
I’ve been thinking for some time and I am going to change things around here a little bit. I’m going to start posting on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from now on. I need to start making room for other things in my life, and it’s gotten to a point that even though I love writing here on TCE, I feel a need to cut back a little to make room for new shifts in priorities off the internet.
As always I’m open to your suggestions, comments, and stories. You can email me at sera(at)thecandyenthusiast.com
Thank you again. Here’s to another successful year full of sweet things!
Nips are a candy I always see around, but never ate unless I was surrounded by adults. They read as a “grandma” candy to me, something I’d find in a candy bowl when I was surrounded by the elderly. The only other place I ever had them was in 4th grade English class, where my teacher would give them out as prizes for answering questions correctly. In fact, I still think of her whenever I see them, and I find myself wondering how she’s doing and if she’s remember me. Such memories!
I decided to give these a try since I haven’t had them in years. I wanted to refresh my memory and my taste buds. Tracking them down proved a bit of a challenge, partly because not every store carries them, but also they seem to be stocked on the top most shelf in the candy aisles. This proves troublesome for someone as short as I.
Nips are a simple and modest candy. They’re round, about the size of a quarter, and are very solid to the touch. I almost though them to be a hard candy, but then I remembered that they have an intense caramel taste. So essentially, they’re a wad of dense caramel with added flavors. Some, like the Dulce De Leche flavor in this review, have a filled center. Others, like the Butter Rum, have the flavors worked into the caramel.
Butter Rum: It’s been a long time since I had anything butter rum flavored. These are sweet, creamy, and very rummy. As in I get this burn in the back of my throat that I can only contribute to alcohol. It’s very nice, even though it’s not my thing. I’m reminded of the butter rum Lifesavers and of the fake extract you find in the supermarket. It’s artificial, yet very flavorful and pleasant.
Dulce De Leche: These have a light yellow colored dreamy center surrounded by the caramel. The flavor is immediately creamy with nice caramel and toasty flavors. I’m reminded of butterscotch a bit, but this has a slight yogurt tang and much creamier. Simple and tasty.
I really like these, and was really pleased with how long they lased in my mouth. I was able to suck on one for a good fifteen minutes, which is impressive for me as I prefer to chew my candy. The drops are fun to eat too as they move around in your mouth with your tongue like a little hockey puck. It’s very entertaining. I’m pleased to say these lived p to my memories and I’ll be picking up a few more boxed since I felt like a kid being able to enjoy them again.
Rating: Will Eat Again
Links Nips Website
I was surprised to see these delightful tubes of licorice on Cybele’s Flickr photostream a few months ago. Mainly because I have very specific ideas in my heard about what sort of candy you find at a Harry & David store. Her photos of their Black Licorice Stix proved me to be quite mistaken in my line of thinking.
When I think of Harry & David stores, specifically in regard to candy, images of pretzels covered in sub-par chocolate and round balls of colored mockolate with dried fruit interiors come to mind. Things that are far better to look at than to eat. I was excited by the idea of being able to try some new kinds of licorice from them, so I bought some when I had the opportunity.
These are tubes of black licorice with a creme filling to give the most succinct description possible. The sticks are thin, maybe a 1/4 inch diameter across and are soft and pliable in hand. I can easily tie them into knots and other shapes, and the possibilities would be endless if they were longer.
The filling is very sweet and has a great vanilla flavor to it. It tastes like a good frosting, and feels like one too once it hits your tongue: smooth and a little grainy. The licorice is nice and balanced in flavor; not too strong and not too mild. It carries strong notes of licorice and molasses and lends itself well with the strong sweetness of the creme center.
It’s so easy to eat these. I find myself not paying attention and then noticing that I’ve devoured a good third of the bag without realizing it. Yeah, they’re that good. The only thing keeping me from buying more is not having a Harry & David store nearby. Maybe that’s a good thing, though.
Rating: Will Eat Again
Links Harry & David Website
Let me come clean right now and say I’ve never been a fan of Twizzlers. I’ve always found them bland and rubbery and won’t eat them even under extreme candy duress. I’d imagine a red rubber spatula to be tastier than Twizzlers, so they’re a candy I simply will not go near. At least the standard strawberry ones, as I haven’t had the other kinds and therefore will be sure to torture myself with tasting them at some point.
Normally I explain how I found and why I bought a specific candy to review. Here I won’t do either as I can’t recall where I purchased these or why. I just found them sitting in my candy stash, and figured I’d photograph and eat them since there were there. Simple as that.
This little packet of Twizzler Sourz hold little colored Twizzler nubbins that are sanded with a sour sugar so they’re tart and zesty. The package is a nice single serve size, I had it as a dessert with my lunch.
Green/Apple: Tastes very strongly of fake apple. Yet, it also comes across as a little authentic because there’s lots of notes of apple juice in here. A perplexing flavor paradox.
Blue: Blue Raspberry: Juicy, perfumey, floral and fake. The floral flavors in there are very strange, but I till find myself enjoying it. Which is odd, since I’m not big on the blue raspberry flavor in general.
Red: Strawberry/Cherry: Both flavors are a red color, so how do I tell them apart? Oh, I don’t unless I eat them? I see. That’s annoying. The cherry one is medicinal and bitter, but very juicy. The strawberry ones tastes lighter and sweeter, and more “red”.
All the colors have a nice tartness to them. The texture is soft so it’s has a nice chew to it, not as sticky as regular Twizzlers are. I’d give regular Twizzler’s an Inedible rating, so I feel these little buggers are a step above. I didn’t enjoy eating them really, but I didn’t spit them out right away and they were fun to take photos of.
Rating: Might Eat Again
Links Twizzler’s Webpage
