Since this is connected to Harry Potter, I figured that the cafe society is the place to post.
Has anyone else tried Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Bean (by Jelly Belly) - I bought them as a joke gift for my eldest stepdaughter’s birthday assuming that they would be regular jelly belly jellybeans in a cool box. However, they really had the gross flavours - earwax, booger, sardine, grass, dirt, spinach, black pepper (which was pretty good), and, of course, vomit. The dirt was so intensely dirt tasting. Ugh!
She (and a friend she had over for dinner) took great pleasure in passing the gross flavours to her father and me. Although it was rather amusing when the two girls confused the vomit flavoured beans with toasted marshmallow. (I brought them large glasses of milk).
We tried them to years ago, around Christmas time. Some of them really were pretty gross. I was surprised by how… um… accurate the vomit-flavor was, and the black pepper one was really quite disgusting to me (everyone’s different). When we got them, they were in a small cloth bag, which was sort of cool.
Sounds like they’ve got some new flavors since then.
I rather liked the black pepper ones. I was also very amused to see Chocolate Frogs on sale for a while, complete with collectible Wizard Trading Cards.
The cat has since confiscated the little cloth Bertie Botts bag, though.
I was amazed at how good a job they did in replicating odd flavors. It has been many years since I have tasted dirt, but damned if that wasn’t the taste. The worst was the anchovy, actually got my gag reflex working. They were fun for a one time thing, but in my case never again.
There was a thread about this a while back. Bertie Botts (Jelly Belly) really captured all the subtle nuances that one expects in a puke or dirt flavored jelly bean. I always wondered who did the taste testing for those.
I’m addicted to Jelly Belly’s. In fact I’m eating a margarita flavored one and I swear I can taste the tequila.
Yeah, I started one after finding a box in a pocket. Bought it when we went to see Finding Nemo and forgot it until the next morning…
You probably do, nearly all of their beans use natural flavorings. Jelly Belly was featured on an episode of “Unwrapped” on Food Network over the weekend.
The idea of using natural flavors to make Botts Beans scares me.
Fear not, there are a few flavors that are totally artificial. Grass, for example. “We do have to draw the line somewhere.” - anonymous Jelly Belly employee
Just as long as Jelly Belly keeps Vomit, Earwax and Booger on the other side of that line. Grass actually could be done with natural flavors - just go to most any smoothie shop and have a glass of wheat grass juice.
I’ve never had real sardines, so to me the sardine tastes most like what I imagine the smell of skunk would taste like if you ate it. But I actually really like the black pepper ones, and the dirt flavored ones. They taste like the smell of freshly-watered potting soil.
At least they don’t have realistic textures.
Are they really Every Flavour Beans? I mean, how about some of the more abstract flavors, like the bitter taste of Indignation which every single day of my life seems to leave in my mouth? Pass a few of those around, and then I’ll be impressed.
I took a tour of the Jelly Belly factory back in January. They said that the vomit flavor was a failed attempt at a pizza-flavored jelly bean. When they were contracted to do the every-flavor beans, they re-used the “pizza” formula that everyone said tasted like puke.
Much as I like both pizza and Jelly beans, the thought of a pizza flavoured bean is quite revolting!