We got one we think was a vomit one. It tasted fairly vile. What we’d do was put them in a jar, blindfold a “taster” and let them bite it in half. They would guess the flavor and we would compare the other half against the color chart. The one the poor taster(I think it was my eldest) thought was vomit wasn’t recognizable after being bitten in half, but it was remarkably bad, so we figured it probably was.
Jelly Belly has a big store on their website, but they sell for about 60% over what independent candy stores do, so if you want to buy in bulk it doesn’t pay to go to the source.
I got through half a vomit flavored one once before something about the flavoring (bile?) triggered a similar response in myself and I had to sit down and breathe deeply for a moment. And rotten egg is like eating a fart.
So I guess they have about 11 new “rookie” flavors they’re trying out as said on their www.jellybelly.com faqs guide.
Buttered Toast, Cinnamon Toast, Baked Bean, Peppermint, Wintergreen, Spearmint (also known as the Mint Trio), Apricot, Grape Crush, Orange Crush, 7up and…uh…Roasted Garlic?! That doesn’t sound very good…
Thanks for finding out about the rookie flavors, Idle Thoughts! Now I really want to try the roasted garlic flavor, just because it sounds so weird. I’m curious about buttered toast jelly beans for the same reason. The apricot flavor sounds like it’s got potential, too. Did you see any info on how outsiders to the Jelly Belly process could be used in a taste test?
It takes a little hunting on the jelly belly site to get to the faq, so I figured I would post the link.
I’m very partial to the black pepper ones, myself.
I suspect some of the special Bertie Bott’s flavors were (as Fritz said about the vomit flavor) based on failed attempts at other flavors, or blends of existing flavors. Some were probably just guesswork, based either on unpleasant experience or reasonable extrapolations (supported by the fact that few people are going to actually try to compare the flavors with the real thing).
The flavor development process in general, though, is surprisingly technical. When trying to replicate a naturally-occurring flavor, they start with a detailed chemical analysis of the natural version of the flavor–they use distillation to separate out flavored oils from fruit, for example, then use chromatography and other techniques that I probably can’t spell to isolate the volatile compounds. Once they’ve isolated the compounds related to the desired flavor, they work out how to synthesize them in bulk, and they’re in business. They may have used techniques like this to produce the pepper and grass flavors, as well as many of their more mainstream beans.
A follow-up: Nosing around the FAQ link Scribble posted, it looks like Jelly Belly uses natural flavorings (like fruit juices and purees) whenever possible. For example, the Bertie Bott’s sardine flavor actually contains codfish oil.
That doesn’t mean they don’t use synthetic esters, aldehydes, and such, just that they don’t use them exclusively. Also, I doubt there’s actual dirt or boogers in the Bertie Bott’s beans.
Oh dear Og. “buttered popcorn”. To borrow a phrase from the cilantro thread, buttered popcorn tastes like HATE. Pure, unadulterated, distilled essence of HATE.
I can tolerate nearly anything but I keep my eyes open for that “flavor” and it’s the one I throw out.
Give me any of the fruity flavors. I like going to the places that have all the different flavors in their own bins or dispensers. No danger of essence-of-hate that way. I’m not so fond of the non-fruit flavors though I won’t spit 'em out… peanut butter? meh. Chocolate? meh (I lurves real chocolate but a chocolate jelly bean just sounds… wrong). Coffee? Meh. Cinnamon? meh. Though when I’m expecting Very Cherry and get cinnamon instead, well, it’s sort of like a little betrayal party in my mouth
Juicy Pear is the best. Second best is Tutti Frutti, which tastes like bubble gum to me, while Bubble Gum only comes kind of close.
I tried vomit and booger once. The vomit was pretty close. The booger didn’t taste anything like my boogers. But then, I do breathe in a lot of dust, probably contributing to the dry, musty flavor.
Some friends of ours live pretty near a Jelly Belly plant in California. When my folks went to visit, they brought me two things: first, a container shaped like California full of Jelly Bellys. Not sure how big it was, but I want to say it was about a pound.
And, the second thing was a big, BIG bag of irregular Jelly Bellys of all flavors. Apparently, to prevent waste, they take all the beans that don’t come out in that perfect bean shape, package them up under the name “Belly Flops”, and sell 'em for a song. Mom said their pricing scheme was something like, one bag for $4, or six bags for $5 (they really want you to take a lot of them away, it seems, so the discount for multiple bags is HUGE).
Anyway, they were delicious, but sooo many. They kinda got all stuck together before I could finish 'em.
