I’m having a really hard time trying to figure these Mentos out. It’s because of my pre-conceived notions of what this candy is supposed to be, based on the package. The first problem is with the name of the candy, and the word “Mentos”. When I eat Mentos, I expect a certain kind of candy, a chewy mint candy with a candy coating. While these Mentos “Sour Mix” fit many of these descriptors, they’re also missing a few as well. The obvious thing missing from this candy is the mint, and frankly I’m happy about that. The coating on these are a little different than I remember classic Mentos, so that’s thrown me off a little as well. The other problem I have with what I’m expecting based on what it says on the package is in the word “sour” written just after the word “Mentos”.

I would not call these sour, maybe tart is a better description. You might go so far as to call them “fairly tart”, I just think sour is not a good description of the flavour. Speaking of flavour, there are a few other problems with the flavour of these as well. Three of the four flavours that come in this tube are okay, with the grape and lime being the best. The pineapple is also okay, but it’s not as great as the other two fine flavours. The problem flavour is actually the strawberry. It only kind of tastes like strawberry, and a fake strawberry at that. Stranger still is that the strawberry is the most predominant flavour in this role, and it’s on purpose.

These candies are packaged in a very unique way. I say unique only because some people might appreciate it, I don’t. On the outside of the label they tell you what order the flavours are going to come in, and how many you’re going to get. The flavours are not mixed up at all either. While some people might like the organization of this packaging, and it is a little unique, I would prefer a bit of surprise. I’d also prefer a better balance of each flavour. In each package there are two pineapple, two grape, four lime, and six strawberry. I don’t know why the numbers are so skewed, but they are. It just seems weird to promote the fact that this is a biased package of candy, and biased towards the worst flavour.

As a tube of random candies, these are fine. They’ve got a bit of tartness, and they’re fun to chew or suck. The flavours aren’t great, but all of them are tolerable. While they are similar to most Mentos, I’d have a hard time saying they’re the same. That’s very fortunate in some ways since adding mint to these would have been disastrous.