This treat surprised me, and it didn’t really work in its favour. Before I get to the surprises and why they didn’t work, I want to say a few words about the fact that these are candy cigarettes. Unlike some companies, they don’t hide the fact that these are candy cigarettes. I assume it’s a cultural thing in Japan and they don’t feel the need to change the name. As a review I’m going to remain neutral on the concept of candy that promotes smoking. I do not personally smoke, and I generally don’t like it, but I’m not here to breath down people’s necks about it either.

The two surprises this treat had where both in the flavours and had nothing to do with the fact that they’re candy cigarettes. The first surprise was my fault because I didn’t read the package before eating these. My Japanese isn’t that great, and I ate these before putting the package through a translation where it says that these are cocoa flavoured. So I was a little shocked about the cocoa flavour because I’ve had Orion candy cigarettes in the past and they were not cocoa flavoured. I was expecting a more generic fruit flavour and shocked a little by the cocoa. I was so shocked that I tried to convince myself that the cocoa flavour was in my head at first.

Once I finally wrapped my head around the fact that these were cocoa flavoured, I then had to deal with the strange menthol aftertaste. I can see why they thought menthol and cocoa would work, as mint and chocolate make a wonderful team. The problem is that this menthol flavour really didn’t have the flavour of mint, just the cooling factor. The flavour was slightly more chemical, and not that pleasant. Not that the cocoa was very genuine either.

In fact the overall flavour of these was just kind of weird. It felt like a fake cocoa flavour followed by a cooling chemical sensation.