I can’t remember the last time I actually had a gumball, but I do remember wishing my parents would buy me one when I was a kid. For the record, my tiger parents never did…

My bag of Dubble Bubble gumballs had “10 Assorted Fruit Flavors”: peach, orange, apple, cherry, grape, berry, strawberry shortcake, strawberry, watermelon, and banana.

All of the gumballs were attractively colorful, shiny, and imprinted with the Dubble Bubble logo. They had a colored sugar shell and a white gum layer around a hollow center. All took on a firm, stiff chew within a dozen or so chomps.

Peach was orange with red splotches. It tasted like sugar. Orange was just orange. There was maybe a whiff of orange citrus to the start? And then it just tasted like sugar.

Apple was a bright lime green, the color of a granny smith apple. It had the edge of a granny smith apple’s sourness for a fleeting second, then tasted like sugar.

Cherry was red on the package, but its shell was practically black in reality. A bit of dark red was visible when it was bitten into. It tasted a little like a cherry popsicle at the very beginning, and then tasted like sugar.

Are we starting to see a theme here? Grape was a blueish purple and started off tasting like a grape popsicle for a half second.

Berry (white with colored speckles), strawberry shortcake (light pink with dark pink speckles), and strawberry (neon pink) just tasted like sugar.

Watermelon was a darker grassy green and had the most actually distinguishable flavor. It tasted of floral candy watermelon Jolly Rancher for almost three seconds! And then it tasted like sugar.

And finally, banana, which was yellow, carried just a whiff of banana essence. And then tasted like sugar.

Clearly I am no longer the target audience for gumballs. They all pretty much just tasted – you guessed it – like sugar, which is mostly what they are.

They get a – from my now grown-up palate. They’re a harmless 25 cent treat for your kid, but if you’re old enough to read this, you’re probably too old to like these chewy sugar bombs.

As for the gumball machine, it’s kind of cool! I’m trying to think about how I can use it in a science experiment, as I’m currently studying self-control in kiddos.

Orbit Mist is a new line from Orbit that’s distinguished by its inclusion of “micro-bursts”, which give you a hydrating sensation when the gum is chewed. I’ve never before wished that my chewing gum could be more hydrating, but it seems like a nice enough touch. Orbit Mist currently comes in three flavors, Mango Surf, Watermelon Spring, and Peppermint Spray.

I thought Mango Surf was an interesting flavor choice for a product launch, as it’s not a conventional flavor of gum or candy. The gum is the familiar little rectangle shape that all Orbit gum has, but it’s visibly flecked with the “micro-bursts”. In this case, it’s orange on orange. I appreciated the little design touch of the circles on the wrapper – very mod.

The “micro-bursts” add an initial crunch when you first chew the gum. And I don’t know how they work, but they work. They make the gum incredibly juicy for the first minute or so of chewing, after which the gum mellows into a soft, lightly flavored chew. The mango flavor is pretty impressively authentic at first – they captured that uniquely seedy flavor of mango, especially that of the flesh nearest to the pit- an even as it fades, a light fruity sweetness is maintained for a good chunk of time.

Watermelon Spring is green gum flecked with red “micro-bursts”. It’s surprisingly sour to start. Nothing too intensely puckery, but enough to make you notice. The juicy sourness quickly gives way to a pretty standard artificial watermelon flavor, like that of a watermelon Jolly Rancher. Again, the flavor holds up well enough and lingers as a mellow sweetness.

I started with the two fruit flavored gums, so I was interested as to how the juiciness, expected from fruits, would translate to a peppermint flavor. It’s anticlimactically totally okay and not at all weird.  I did find the “micro-bursts” to be extra crunchy/poppy in this, but it could have been my imagination. The peppermint is freshly minty with just a tinge of sweetness to the finish, and it’s that slight sweetness that lingers in the gum after most of the mint flavor is gone.

All in all, I’m a fan of the “micro-bursts”. Contrary to what Conde Nast Portfolio will tell you, I’m not actually a gum addict, and I gave most of my extra packs away. If I were a gum addict, these would get a higher rating because they’re good, as far as gum goes. I think the fruit ones are worth an OM, while the peppermint gets an O because it’s hard to make peppermint gum exciting. In fact, the Peppermint Spray was about as exciting as peppermint gum can get. I’m hoping that Orbit continues to expand the Mist line to more flavors, especially citrus fruit flavors.

Smarties Bubble Gum is quite similar to Razzles, in that it starts out like candy but ends as gum. Thankfully, unlike Razzles, Smarties Bubble Gum does not have a weird, medicinal aftertaste. The different colors of the Smarties Bubble Gum sort of have different initial flavors. By sort of, I mean that they seem to have slightly different levels of sugary, generic fruit flavor. Once it turned into gum, the little flavor it had quickly dissipated.

Texture-wise, the gum is nice and soft, more like Trident or Orbit than flat-sticked gum. Though I liked the Smarties Bubble Gum more than I did Razzles, I still didn’t exactly like it. In the end, it’s not worth it, despite the novelty factor. An O.

Japanese Money Chocolate

This chocolate bar was given to me by my suitemate’s Japanese friends who came all the way from Japan to visit her. I have no clue what it’s called; I’ve chosen to dub it Japanese Money Chocolate because it came wrapped up to look like a piece of Japanese paper money and had a fake paperboard piece inside as well. I didn’t get a picture of it before I unwrapped it, but here’s a terrible shot of the wrapper, if you want to take a look.

The bar was quite prettily imprinted with playing card suits. Why, I don’t know, but why not? It was darker and smokier tasting than what I expected, and it was filled with rice crispies, giving it a nice toastiness. It looks rather greasy in the photo (and it was greasy in person), but the chocolate was actually pretty nice, smooth and not at all oily. I ate the whole bar (about the size of a credit card) in one sitting. An OM.

Sanrio Bubble Gum

This bubble gum found me via my friend Cassie, who bought them on a Sanrio store shopping spree. Aren’t the wrappers adorable? I tasted the green one: Chibimaru kiwi fruit. The gum also comes in other flavors (raspberry, lemon, orange), which I didn’t taste.

The gum came in three attached but breakable segments and was snow white. I expected it to be green like the wrapper or like kiwis, but whatever. It was lightly sweet and fruity with a velvety texture, almost fuzzy on my tongue. An interesting textural sensation with a nice, light flavor. I’d give this gum an O. The flavor lasted for an annoying short time, and because the gum came from the Sanrio store, it was probably overpriced.

They sent me some samples (review to come later), but I didn’t get them before I left school for Thanksgiving break. Hopefully they’ll be waiting for me when I get back. I can’t wait to try them!

In gum news, Stride gum (BUY!) is giving away a Dodge Caliber with a trunk full of 2,160 packs of gum. With the way Stride gum lasts a long time, that could keep you chewing for a looonng time. To enter, visit www.stridegum.com and play their dodgeball flash game.

Upon closer inspection however, disappointment. Cinnamon. Yummy, but in this context, boring. Cassie was disappointed to, as she bought it for me because she knew that I would be adventurous enough to try chicken flavored gum. Chicken gum is novel and interesting. Cinnamon gum is banal. False advertising! Fine print! Another candy packaging foul!

The little box contained 8 pieces of Chiclet shaped gum, with a characteristically hard sugar shell around the actual gum. The gum was super strong! It was almost eye-wateringly spicy and tingly, and the tingling sensation lingers. I chewed a single piece, which yielded a ridiculously minuscule amount of actual gum, but I didn’t dare pop more pieces in my mouth. If that lone, tiny piece could set my taste buds on fire, two or three pieces would probably be unbearable.

As far as gum goes, it’s pretty good cinnamon-flavored gum, and those who really like spicy, cinnamon candies would probably like its strong flavor. However, because each piece yields such a tiny amount of gum and because the advertising is deliberately misleading, it warrants only an O in my book. I’ll stick with buying just normal cinnamon gum.

Let’s make this candy related: We’re playing Cornell, aka the Big Red. Big Red is also the name of a cinnamon gum that I hated as a kid because it was so spicy. Now that I’m old enough to appreciate cinnamon gum, I wonder if I’d like it… Must buy Big Red gum for a taste test soon.

Ta da! Everything in life can be tied to candy!

update: We won, as expected. Final score, not so expected: 51-12.

• “Comes in stick form, which is the most popular.”
• “Because of its distinct design, you can open the pack with just one hand…”
• “Each flavor of 5 has a different set of ingredients referred to as ‘sensates.’… These flavor ingredients stimulate nerve endings in the mouth that signal to the brain that there’s a cooling, tingling, or warming feeling. It’s the same nerve that signals when there’s an actual temperature difference, so… a ‘sensate’ … fires the same nerve endings that triggers the perception of coolness.”
• And my personal favorite: “Play RFC with friends… Rain puts out Flare, Flare melts Cobalt, and Cobalt freezes Rain. You can find it on 5gum.com…”

Goodness, Wrigley’s marketing people! Overkill much? You have to admit though, their marketing people sure earned their keep. And the packaging design is pretty slick. Apparently there are little 5s on the package that glow under black lights, and, sure enough, I can open it with just one hand. I also like the added touch of the embossed 5s on the foil wrapper. Snazzy all over!

To recap thus far, the packaging is cool, the names are corny, and the marketing is… thorough and eager. But how does it taste?

Pretty good. Not amazing, but serviceable. An OM, mostly because I’m a sucker for the package design. The flavor does last for a long time. A piece of Cobalt (peppermint) that I popped before lecture had about half an hour of flavor and over an hour of cooling ‘sensate’ power. Unfortunately, in the last half hour of just sensate, the gum got rather unbearable. Aside from continuing to make my mouth minty and cool, it was like any piece of Wrigley’s stick gum that’s lost its flavor – rubbery in taste and texture – which was distracting. Up until that point, though, it was decent gum, if not revelatory.

Flare (cinnamon) was not cinnamon-y enough for my taste, but it did earn bonus points for its long-lasting flavor and resilient heat ‘sensates.’ When I paid attention and sought it out, I did notice a little artificial sweetener aftertaste, but the flavor and ‘sensates’ are pretty effective at masking that unpleasantness.

Rain (spearmint) was surprising good. I don’t usually chew spearmint gum, but I’ve smelled it before, so I thought I had an idea of how it should taste. Rain was sweeter than I expected. It also had the weakest ‘sensates’ of the bunch. While the wrapper promised a tingling spearmint, I got more mint than tingle. Still, I enjoyed it and its lovely pale green color.

While stick gum may be the most popular, I prefer smaller, softer pieces of gum like Orbit, which is also owned by Wrigley’s. When Orbit loses its flavor, it’s still soft and can still be texturally pleasing to chew. 5 got too stiff and yicky after extensive chewing.

Still, if you like stick gum or like looking trendy, 5 gum should be a good buy. Just pulling out the packaging will probably draw you attention. You’ll have to feel silly talking about ‘sensates’ and Flare, Cobalt, and Rain as flavors, but hey, it looks cool!

And you don’t even have to buy the gum to try it, as I am giving away a pack of Cobalt and a pack of Rain. I also have three Buy 1 Get 1 Free coupons. Leave a comment here or in the previous 5 gum post with your email address (only I can see it) by tomorrow, September 22. If several people enter, I’ll do a drawing. If not so many people enter, everybody wins!

I got this pretty sweet package in the mail from BzzAgent for their new 5 gum promotion.

It’s enough gum to keep me chewing for a while, so I thought I’d share it with the rest of the world. I’ve opened the Flare (cinnamon) already, but I’ll give away the Cobalt (peppermint), Rain (spearmint), and the Buy 1 Get 1 Free coupons. Just leave a comment with your email address (Only I will be able to see it, and I promise not to send you spam) by Saturday, September 22. If several people enter, I’ll do a drawing. If not that many people enter, then everyone wins! Unless you live outside of the U.S., in which case I can’t afford to mail you gum. Leslie is an exception to this rule, because she is awesome.

I’ll try to have a review of this gum up next week. Right now, I’m chewing a piece of Flare (I feel like such an idiot, calling my gum Flare flavored), and it’s pretty good. I’ve been chewing for a while, and the flavor is still going strong.

The packaging is like that of Dentyne’s soft gum, which makes sense because they’re made by the same company. It’s clever. You can finish the bottom flap’s worth of gum, tear it off, and still reseal the rest of your pack in the top half’s notch.

The Forever Fruit flavor smells delicious – sweet and citrus-y and quite appetizing. If only it tasted as good as it smells! It’s rather generically fruity, and that generic flavor isn’t bad; it’s just nothing to crow about. After a bit, the fruity flavor degrades into a faint artificial sweetness that lasts for a long time. I chewed my way through the movie Superbad, and the flavor made it pretty much the whole way through the movie. That long-lasting flavor, however, isn’t exactly one that’s enjoyable for an extended period of time.

I’d like to try the other flavors of Stride that maybe won’t taste so much of aspartame. It also comes in sweet peppermint, winterblue (which I assume is wintergreen), and spearmint, but alas, no cinnamon yet. For my fruit flavored soft gum needs, I’ll stick to Orbit (I particularly like their raspberry mint).