Japanese Screaming Intense Super Sour Plum Candy

Japanese Screaming Intense Super Sour Plum Candy - Asian Food Market $1.79

Sorry for the hiccups in posting. House-buying and moving stuff has my after-work hours pretty tied up these days, but we're closing THIS FRIDAY! I'll finally get the keys and the place will be mine! Hooray!! It still needs a lot of repairs, and cleaning, before I can move in, but I'm a home owner! Which is definitely something worth screaming about.

So, let's celebrate with some Screaming Intense candy! (Will I be able to handle it?)

First off, I love this packaging and everything about it. We've got a detailed comic-book-like illustration of a woman with pickled-plum-hair and a sour expression, screaming text, flowers, hearts, shades of pink, and metallic accents. There is a LOT going on here, but it's very eye catching and visually interesting without being overwhelming. I spotted this on the shelf right away and knew that I had to buy it regardless of the actual candies inside. The packaging is just that cool.

Inside, the screaming woman from the bag seems a little more subdued in various shades of pink with a few different sayings. I can't read any of them (maybe someone can translate them for me?), but I love the variety. There are a few non-metallic wrappers tossed into the mix with sayings of their own, but the metallic wrappers with the woman's face are a lot more interesting. Even though all the candies inside are the same, I find myself gravitating towards those ones.

Once it's unwrapped you can see that this pale pink candy is awkwardly shaped and kind of big. Upon closer inspection it has a matte finish, and it smells like sour pickled plums cured in sugar. If you've never had a pickled plum before, the best way that I can describe it is to imagine a powerful fruity vinaigrette salad dressing, if it were made with unripe fruit. It's sweet, sour, tangy, fruity, and vinegar'd all at once. This aroma might put a lot of people off, but I am the kind of person who sips on drinking vinegar (and occasionally chugs normal balsamic vinegar), so I think it smells wonderful!

I popped it into my mouth, expecting a hard candy with a flavored center, but this outside layer is actually really soft! At times it feels like the outer shell was meant to dissolve into chewing gum, but it just keeps melting away into nothingness instead of forming anything solid and chewy. I was not expecting this texture at all! It's unlike anything I've ever had before. It's not stiff and bouncy, like Hi-Chew or Puccho, but it's not soft life a taffy either. At first bite it's crumbly, then it softens and melts in your mouth almost like candle wax. It's just...fascinating. So fascinating that I completely forgot to describe the flavor!

The outer layer has a very mild pickled plum flavoring, for the most part it's sweet, maybe a little yogurt-y, with a hint of fruity plum-infused vinegar. In my opinion it's really mild and easy to eat, but vinegar haters WILL disagree. However, the center is where it's at, and it's intense!! It's very sour, almost like a Warhead (but a bit milder) with a bold vinegar flavoring and some juicy fruit notes and even...salt? It's a very authentic candy representation of an actual sour pickled plum. Safe to say, this is NOT a flavor for everyone, but I quite like it!

It may not be as snackable as a bag of Starbursts or Skittles, and my tongue might not be able to handle eating too many of these in a row, but it's a very uniquely textured product that packs an interesting flavor that (nearly) hits upon every taste sensation at once! Even though this one bag will last me a while, I would definitely repurchase it!

Sure, it's got a cool package and some shock value (imagine how fun it would be to share this with less-adventurous foodie-friends), but I honestly enjoy it for what it is! It's safe to say the majority of people out there likely won't enjoy this as much as I do, but I think everyone out there should give it a chance. If you do, let me know what you think!

 © Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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