Pom Juice Hi-Chew

My main exposure to the word "pom" comes from watching the Bruces sketch in Monty Python's flying circus where Terry Jones is introduced as a "pommy bastard" to the Australian yokels. Yes, you may conclude that I am a gigantic geek for this, but what would one expect from someone who writes a blog about Japanese junk food?

Given the meaning of this word in England, I wondered why the Japanese have named an orange juice "Pom". The truth is that the romanization of the Japanese characters (ポンジュス) used to be and can be read as "Pon", but it was changed to "Pom" at some point because the name is based on pomelo, a type of citrus fruit. One thing I learned from my research into this candy is that tangelos, which I used to eat in the U.S., are a hybrid of tangerine and pomelo.


At any rate, Pom juice has been around for about 40 years, but I've rarely seen it or drunk it. It's a 100% fruit juice made by a company named Ehime Inryo. This candy is a collaboration between that company and the better-known food producer, Morinaga. My husband found this at "New Days" convenience store for about 100 yen ($1.10). He couldn't recall if this was one of the many New Days exclusives, but I haven't seen it in any other, convenience stores, markets or snack shops.

There are 12 pieces at 19 calories apiece in the package. They smell a lot like children's orange baby aspirin to me, without the medicinal edge. The taste to me was pure tasty, but sweet, orange juice. My husband thought it tasted more like an orange Creamsicle, but I didn't detect any of the vanilla ice cream flavors that he seemed to taste. This had the same texture as all Hi-Chew, like chewing gum that melts away in your mouth.

I thought this was an excellent Hi-Chew, though I'm not a fanatic about these types of candies no matter how good the variety is. I'd definitely eat this again and my husband really liked it so it gets a happy sumo rating despite the fact that I'm unlikely to purchase it for myself again.