REVIEW: Assorted Hi-Chew Flavors (including Pineapple)!

In addition to a bag of Crunch Ball Crispy Candy, Nana and Justin also mailed me a nice assortment of Hi-Chew candies in strawberry, grape, and green apple.

They were so good that when Asian Food Grocer?- an online retailer of Asian food, snacks, and candies – contacted me with an offer to send me my choice of their products to review, I asked for a pack of pineapple flavored Hi-Chew. In hindsight, I should’ve asked for Hi-Chew in every flavor they sold; they’re good, and Asian Food Grocer sells Hi-Chew in flavors that I haven’t seen at my local Asian grocery store. Missed opportunity, I guess. But I’m not too sad, as I got other Asian candy goodies, the reviews for which will post later.

Let’s start with the three Hi-Chew from Nana and Justin.? If you’ve never had them before, Hi-Chew are small rectangular chewy candies with wonderfully bright fruit flavors. They come in a stick of individually wrapped candies, and their chew is fairy non-sticky and almost bouncy. I think they’re like the Starburst of Asia, but better because their fruit flavors actually taste like fruit.

Strawberry Hi-Chew:

For example, I usually don’t especially like strawberry flavored candy, but I enjoyed the strawberry Hi-Chew because it tasted so genuine – you could almost taste a tinge of strawberry seeds.

Grape Hi-Chew:

Similarly, grape Hi-Chews actually taste like grapes, without any whiff of cough syrup artificial grape flavor. They taste like sweet black grapes.

Green Apple Hi-Chew:

The apple didn’t taste at all like an apple Jolly Rancher. Its flavor was more subtle, more Fuji/Braeburn sweet than Granny Smith tart.

Pineapple Hi-Chew:

My favorite of the Hi-Chews I had was the pineapple. I can’t express often enough how Hi-Chew taste so vibrantly of actual fruit. The pineapple Hi-Chews were bright, sweet, slightly tart, and carried just a hint of the slight bitter astringency of a real pineapple’s core. Pineapple flavored candies aren’t too common in the U.S. I wish they were more ubiquitous, and I wish they all tasted like a pineapple Hi-Chew.

The conclusion:

The pineapple Hi-Chew gets an OMG; the other flavors get an OM. Hi-Chew, in general, are pretty easy to find near the checkout counters of Asian grocery stores, though flavor selection does vary.