Jelly Belly "Conversation Beans"

Jelly Belly

The point of this candy is simple. It’s kind of an homage or maybe a parody of conversation hearts made by Necco. As a novel version of this classic treat these are perfectly acceptable. Each bean had a different message on it, most of the messages were one word and all of the ones I found were positive. There wasn’t anything dirty or negative as a joke bean which was nice. In general, I found the idea of these beans to be a total success.

Where these beans fell down a bit was in the flavour. Before even eating them, I was surprised to read that all of the flavours were sour. I don’t really associate sour fruit with romance, in particular sour grapes seems pretty negative. After tasting them, it turns out that they’re actually not that sour at all either. So, they market something that doesn’t make sense, then they kind of failed at it. The fruit flavours were also not that great, and none of them tasted much like the fruit they claimed to be. The flavours were not unpleasant, but other than the cherry they were very generic. I did however really enjoy them when I ate all the flavours together.

Texture wise they were what you would expect from Jelly Bellies. In general, I think these were a slightly gimmicky candy, but appropriate for Valentine’s Day. I wouldn’t seek these out for any other reason than it would make a nice gift for a jelly bean fan on Valentine’s Day.