Gelee Pure Peach Gummys and Meiji Gummy Candy

When I received both of these in ZenPop's Peach Festa box, I figured it was only reasonable to pit them against one another. I constructed a tiny battle arena and placed each in one corner of the ersatz ring. One of them had a shelled pistachio for a coach and the other a crusty old corn nut. Both touch old snacks did their best to prepare them for the battle to come. When the bell rang, I ate them both.

In terms of appearance, the Pure are definitely the more attractive-looking candy, and not just because the shape whispers that it will love you back if you choose to love it. The frosty white exterior reminds one of sugar, though it actually is part of the sour and sweet combination that this candy offers.

The Meiji Gummy is much more pedestrian in appearance and more straightforward in its flavor profile. It has a pure, sweet peach flavor that tastes fresh and natural. Eating one of these is like eating a very flavorful peach in terms of taste. In fact, both gummies get the peach flavor amazing "right." I just happen to prefer the flavor depth of the Pure's sour combination along with the sweet.

The texture of both candies is slightly tough and quite chewy, though they soften as they are warmed by your mouth. Neither has an edge when it comes to texture. Because they seem to be made with less sugar than some gummy-style candies, I found that they don't tend to stick in your teeth quite so badly.

Also, and this means a lot more in Japan than it does in the U.S., they both contain collagen. In my copious experience talking to Japanese women about skin (as they were always remarking on my "creamy white skin"), I know that they're a little bonkers for anything which they can supplement to improve their skin quality. Collagen is supposed to improve elasticity so you can have skin that snaps back like a rubber band if you eat enough of these gummies. (Note: I made that up. Neither company makes such a promise.)

The packaging is a little different in that Kanro's Pure gives you nutrition information for each candy (11.4 calories and 135.4 mg of collagen) and Meiji gives you information on the entire bag (155 calories and 2200 mg of collagen). Though they are tasty, I think Meiji is more than a little optimistic if they think you're going to chew your way through an entire bag.

The winner is: Pure. This is largely due to the added flavor depth from the citric acid powder on the outside, but they also just feel like a nicer candy in terms of the whole experience. That isn't to say that the Meiji gummy isn't tasty. It really is, but I'd buy Pure if I had to choose.

Meiji gummy rating:

Pure gummy rating:

Kanro Pure Mango Yogurt Gummy

Recently, I contacted a woman who used to do psychic readings. I've never been to one, but I know this one to be genuine as she did a reading twenty or so years ago and was correct about some fairly specific details. I know this for certain because I listened to a cassette of the predictions. There's no dancing around the accuracy of what she said because there's no memory distortion at play.

This woman no longer does readings. In fact, she said she hadn't been doing them for a very, very long time, but she'd "pull a card" for me. I'm not sure what that means, but the card she came up with was "expectations". As part of the "warning" she included, she pasted in what I'm sure is a common statement that this is something that I need to interpret personally and not meant in any way to be a bigger message than anything I make of it.

This experience got me thinking about expectations and why we have them and how they are formed. Mainly, they are based on history. We decide what to expect based on the patterns of behavior or experiences in our past. If your neighbor gets up every morning and walks into his kitchen naked by his open window, squats and does a few knee bends culminating in a blast of flatulence, and then pours his coffee and sits down for a nude read of the paper both gas- and clothing-free, you will be shocked to see him show up in a suit and then reading from an iPad. You'll be shocked, but you'll also be relieved.

Sure, you could choose to just not look at him through his morning horror show, but it's like a car crash. It's hard to look away. And, sure, you think you wouldn't look as you have been reading this, but you would. Trust me. You would.

Like all other things, we form expectations of products based on past experience with the brand. My expectation of the Pure line of Gummy candies is that they will possess a certain tartness and not be too sweet. I also expect that the fruity flavors will be relatively balanced and not too overbearing.

I was very excited when I saw this mango yogurt flavor on sale at Marukai market because I had been aware of it for awhile. I figured it would be pretty good, but my expectations, unfortunately, were not met.

The main problem is that the mango is overbearing and too sweet. The yogurt presents itself as a sort of sour dairy undertone, but it isn't really strong enough to ameliorate the intense mango puree flavor. Don't get me wrong, I love fresh mango, but this feels like it has been amped up by boiling it down into an intense mush of mango and stripped of the moisture that evens out the flavor of a fresh mango, not to mention the little acidic sense you get when eating one.

I'm not sure if this is actually all that bad or if my expectations were just too high. Pure has generally been greeting me with a three piece suit and an iPad every morning. This time, it feels more like the naked fart experience. Still, I'm sure that it'll be better next time. Experience creates such an expectation in me.

Pure Grapefruit Honey and Peach Mango Gummy (product announcement)

Image from Kanro.

One of my friends recently remarked on Facebook that part of the process of making gummi candy involves boiling animal bones. She's a vegetarian, so this was something of concern to her and she wanted to let other friends who may subscribe to her moral code know to avoid such candies. I'm rather torn at this point about whether or not to warn her about marshmallows as well, as they also often contain gelatin derived from animal products.

The rational side of me, which I try to keep firmly in check at all times, would also like to point out that this is actually not food that contributes to the death of animals. No one is killing animals to boil their bones for gelatin products. It's actually finding a use for the parts that are leftover after all of us savage omnivores have consumed the flesh. My guess is that, if we all stopped eating meat, then all gelatin-related products in America would cease to be made from bones and would be made the way they are in Japan, from seaweed. I don't think people would be raising cows to toss their meat in the trash and boil the bones.

The good news is that I can recommend Japanese marshmallows and gummy/gummi candies to her and she can enjoy them without violating her personal ethical code. Since Pure keeps offering up new and interesting flavors, there's no end to the fun you can have sampling their candies. And, they are good gummies. I've tried a lot of them and rarely disliked one. Okay, I really didn't care for the apple and ginger ale one, but the rest were quite nice.

There are actually three new flavors on offer, but I couldn't put them all in the headline. There are the grapefruit and honey and peach mango flavors pictured at the top of the post as well as a yogurt mango flavor shown above this paragraph. It's clear that mango blends are one of the more popular food fads right now. Mango has been in the spotlight for a few years now, and clearly it's popularity has not waned. The yogurt and mango flavor features a split color scheme, supposedly featuring one flavor on each side. It was released in June. The other flavors will be available at the end of the first week of July at convenience stores. 

Kanro Pure Yogurt Mango Gummi (product announcement)

I once sat down and tried to organize lists of seasonal flavors in Japan. In fact, one day, this list will make it into some sort of blog post since there are definitely patterns to the releases based on how hot or cold it is outside. Just as "Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride" tea is released by Celestial Seasonings each winter as Halloween comes our way, spring starts seeing sakura (cherry/cherry blossom) flavored snacks. 

Kanro is releasing a yogurt and mango gummi and saying that it has a "summer" feeling. I'm not sure that mango is a summer fruit for Japan, unless they are getting lots of imports from Mexico, but I do know that it was once a fad to eat dried mango and now it has become as much a part of regular Japanese living as tiramisu, which also began its days as a fad food and stayed on pretty much forever. 

The release date on this is given as "mid-June", so it may already be out or soon be in stores. Most Pure flavors make their way to Nijiya markets so I'm hoping to get a crack at this in the future. I've only met one or two Pure flavors that I didn't like, and I'm guessing this is probably pretty good. If you get your hands on it before I do, feel free to leave a comment and let me know what I might be in for. If it sucks, you might be saving me a couple of bucks and I'd certainly be grateful for the head's up.

Pure Love Gummy

If you asked someone what "love" tastes like, the answers you're going to get will vary wildly based on the age, gender, and maturity level of the object of your question. Personally, even thinking about what a feeling tastes like sounds like about as warped a case of synesthesia as one could encounter, but I'm willing to play along a little.

This gummy candy was released as part of a promotional campaign in which one could win a date on a white horse with a "prince". By "prince", they mean some smiling dork in a weird costume and by "white horse", they mean a carriage being pulled by one. The winner of the contest could have an awkward encounter and some inane small talk about apple pies with the actor who pretended to be an object of romantic desire. 

Why are apple pies coming into the mix? Well, it appears that "love" tastes like apple. When I bought this package of gummy candy at Nijiya market (for $2.19/206 yen), I didn't know what they were going to taste like and the clerk we asked said she didn't know either. If I had thought for a second, or used some other part of my brain, I would have looked at the ingredients list which helpfully lists "apple juice" among the many chemicals and sugars used to create these vaguely heart-shaped blobs.

When I opened the packet, still oblivious to the composition of the contents, I thought they smelled like super strong pear, but the flavor was much more clearly apple. In fact, it's not just apple, but double strength applesauce flavor with a citric acid bite on the end. Though I like apples in general, these are a bit too strong for me. I also like Pure gummy candy quite a lot, but this one absolutely comes in as the least enjoyable one I've ever had. 

I'm sorry, Kanro, but love definitely doesn't taste like apple to me. In fact, I'd much rather it tasted like orange. If there is any balance in the universe, come next setsubun, there will be a "hate" candy to represent the yang to the love candy's ying. I'm voting that hate taste like the darkest of dark cherry that they can get their hands on, but I'm guessing they'd go for something like durian. 

Kanro Iyokan Gummy Candy

When I was growing up, there were basically two types of oranges in my life, navels and tangerines. Of course, there were more types of oranges around, but I was a kid and I didn't care. In fact, I didn't even like oranges until I went to Japan and found that their citrus was sweeter and tastier than what I had grown up with. In the winter in Tokyo, there were the working class little gems that we all know and love, mikan. Buying a big bag of those and getting them eaten before they started to dry out was a challenge my husband and I were happy to meet. My students never had any problems. Some people told me they'd sit down and eat 6 or so at one sitting. One middle-aged lady grabbed the spare tire at her mid-riff one day and told me that she had eaten an entire bag of them in one day.

Japanese citrus may begin with mikan, as they are cheap when in season and very accessible, but I discovered it didn't end there. Dekopon was the Cadillac of oranges for me and I hope one day to find the American equivalent here ("Sumo Citrus"). Nijiya supermarket is supposed to stock them, but I haven't found them yet and I'm not sure what their season is since their web site says that their 2012 season is over (whereas dekopon season is winter in Japan). I'm guessing that they will carry a luxury-car-size price when I finally do encounter them, especially since it seems fairly expensive markets stock them.

This candy is flavored like yet another type of Japanese citrus, iyokan. I had a few of these when I was still in Japan. Their main appeal is that they are fairly economical compared to other options. I think I used to get fairly decent sized ones for about 60 yen (76 cents) each at Seiyu supermarket, and found that, while serviceable, they did not fall within the range of fantastic citrus that dekopon did. Iyokan was the Volkswagon Beatle of the citrus world. I got what I paid for. It wasn't as sweet or flavorful, but I didn't pay about 150 yen ($1.89) for each one.

Hearts and stars. Next, it'll be moons and clovers.

Fortunately, what may not wow as fruit has greater potential as candy which can be augmented with sugar for sweetness and intensified by processing it. That is precisely what was done with these tangy, intense, and utterly delicious gummy candies. One bite tastes like a super juicy, sweet, but not too sweet orange. They have an excellent real citrus flavor which I imagine can be attributed to "iyokan concentrate" in the ingredient list as well as the wonderful tangy bite that comes from the coating of citric acid powder on the outside.

I loved these and would absolutely have them again. It helps that I enjoy the Pure line of gummies anyway (well, except the gross apple ginger ale one), which is odd since I don't really like other types of gummy candy. Note that the texture of these is a little tougher than some gummy candies, though it depends a lot on how warm they are. If you want to soften them up, put them in your pocket and sit on them for a little while. I wouldn't recommending microwaving them or anything. They'd probably catch on fire and I'm not going to be responsible for any stupidity induced accidents, so don't come crying to me if you burn your house down while attempting to impatiently warm these up. Getting back to the point though, this is absolutely one of the best of Kanro's Pure gummy flavors that I have ever had. I can't imagine that anyone who likes orange-flavored sweets would be disappointed in this, but, again, don't sue me if you don't like them. It's not like I'm issuing any guarantees here.

I got this candy courtesy of Sakura Box (that means "free") as part of their "monthly candy bag" which I reviewed last Friday. This is part of a new flavor line that Kanro is offering (along with cassis), so those in Japan ought to be able to pick it up for the time being at local shops. I imagine it won't be around as a staple flavor (like lemon or grape) though as it's a seasonal type of flavor. Get it while you can.

Pure Gummy Apple Ginger Ale

This flavor of gummy is part of Pure's "wild pure" line. The thing that makes them "wild", apparently, is the kooky notion of including two different flavors rather than one. Apparently the people at Kanro (which makes the Pure gummy line) live a very sheltered existence.

I spied this out of the corner of my eye just as I was checking out at a Lawson 100. I didn't get a good look at the package before grabbing it and slapping it down on the counter and I thought it said "Apple Ginger". I missed the "Ale" part and probably wouldn't have opted to buy it had I known. It's not that I dislike ginger ale. In fact, I really like the drink but my experience with it in candy is that it tastes like flat, stale soda rather than a delightful bubbly concoction associated with dryness and our neighbors in the great white north. Still, I'd spent my 100 yen ($1.30) and now I was going to chew it up regardless of my mistake.

The picture above is the contents of the entire bag (46 grams/1.6 oz.). Each candy has collagen (good for your skin) and Vitamin C (good for what ails you) and provides 12.3 calories. This is a good candy to have around for a flavorful bite or two and, even for a gummy/gummi, doesn't stick too badly to your teeth.

When I opened the bag, it smelled rather intensely of fake apple flavoring. In fact, it reminded me of rotting apples sitting in a hot kitchen, a scent I can identify with after the long and oppressive Tokyo summer. The scent of the actual candy wasn't as strong as the air released when the bag's seal was broken, but it still smells like fermented applesauce. Pure gummy candies are covered in citric acid powder to give them a sour bite and that was present here, though it was masked to a great extent by the relatively strong apple flavor with liberal amounts of ginger. There's also an intense perfumey kick at the end of the bite which is elevated by the tangy powder.

I had mixed feelings about this. I like the texture of the gummy, which is slightly chewy and firmer than European or American gummy candies. I also like the general flavor balance and the citric acid powder on the outside. The fact that these aren't incredibly sugary is a bonus, but ultimately the apple flavor itself was just too overpowering for my tastes. It's a good candy on the whole, but probably not for everyone.

Pure Plum Gummy

I love the line of Pure gummy candies. I've reviewed a few of them in the past, and have sampled a few that haven't made the blog. The introduction of an ume (plum) version intrigued me because I'm generally a fan of sour Japanese plums and thought there was good potential in the sweet and sour combination in Pure's gummy candy.


These Pure gummies are made similarly to all the other types. They are firm gummies that are slightly tough and covered in citric acid powder. They're both sweet and sour at the same time. With flavors like lemon, blueberry, orange, etc., this works very well. With plum, it didn't work quite so well. Strong plum flavor isn't pleasant. It's like over the top banana flavor in that way. There is a reason that you don't find many people spreading plum jam on their toast or drinking plum juice.

These were okay, and I enjoyed the same sour and sweet mixture that is used in all Pure gummies, but I simply didn't find the plum flavor very pleasant. There's nothing wrong with these, and someone else might find them more pleasant than I. I think I'll stick to more conventional flavors from now on.

Pure Orange Gummy Candy

Note: Blogger appears to have eaten the pictures for this post, and I'm afraid I no longer have the originals so the best I can do is a screenshot of the product from Kanro's site. Sorry about that!

One of the bad points about writing this blog is that I rarely get a chance to return to the items I sincerely enjoyed. There's only so much junk you can eat, and despite my liberal sampling of various sweets, I am trying to be very careful about how much food of suspect nutritional value that I consume. Most of the time, I'm eating small portions and letting my husband finish the rest or eating the remainder through time.

I really like the Pure line of gummy sweets. I've only had the blueberry kind that I reviewed last October once or twice since then, even though I liked it a lot. There are a several other flavors, but none of them grabbed me enough to place trying them at the head of a long line of other curious foods until I saw these navel orange gummies. I hate oranges, but I love orange-flavored things. This is one of those rare occasions where I dislike the real fruit and like things flavored like it. Generally, it's the other way around (especially for bananas and strawberries).

These gummies, brought to us by Kanro, are sprinkled in the same sort of pixie dust coating as all the other Pure gummies. The coating is a sort of citric acid powder combined with what seems to be sugar. It adds a certain tart and sweet quality to the candy. The candies are clean to hold and firm, but soft and easy to bite into.

These taste just like orange juice. There's a strong hit of navel orange flavor. The sourness seems to ramp up the intensity of the sweetness. My husband says he finds these super sweet, but I find them merely super intense in the best possible way. I could easily eat the entire bag in one imprudent sitting, but I try to keep consumption down to no more than three 12-calorie jellies per day. Interestingly, there is paprika included as an ingredient in these, but you can't taste it at all. It's clearly included for color only.

All of the Pure gummies that I've seen are in 46 gram (1.6 oz.) bags for about a dollar (100 yen), but I think there are probably other sizes out there. If you'd like to see the array of flavors available at any given time, you can visit the Pure Pure Garden web site. It's in Japanese, but if you click on the pictures of the bags at the bottom, the illustrations of the fruit make it clear what types you can get.

There are few snacks I've had of which I can say I'd want to continue to buy them when I return to the U.S. This is one of them. I just love that sour and sweet mix with the real fruit flavor of these gummies.

Puré Blueberry Gummy

As a kid, I don't recall ever eating a gummy bear or any of the other popular forms of gummy. In fact, the only gummy I recall were fish that could be bought as penny candy back when such a thing existed. To be fair about my age, I'm not that old. Penny candy died out before I was 10 years old and it was never really good penny candy. You could get one gummy fish for a penny or a really tiny lame gumball, but you couldn't get a Reese's miniature for anything less than a nickel.

Because I never craved gummy (or gummi, if you like) and I value my teeth too much to eat a lot of sugary candy, I rarely try such things, but the idea of something fruity caught my fancy today at the store and I found this little 46 gram (1.6 oz) bag of sweets. These candies are made by Kanro which has the tagline, "a fairytale in your mouth." I'm not sure if that's supposed to be enchanting or scary. I guess it depends on which fairytale it is. If it's the three little pigs, I'm guessing we're talking mouthwatering pork products. If it's Snow White, it could be dwarven ale (good) or poison apples (bad). I shudder to think what I'd be tasting if it's Rumpelstiltskin.

Kanro makes a lot of candy made from sugar syrup rather than sweets like cookies, cakes, or chocolates. It's also a relatively small company compared to some of the bigger guns in the Japanese confectionery business. They make hard candies and throat lozenges as well as these gummies. In fact, I've been a regular consumer of one of their herbal sugar-free lozenges during most of my stay in Japan. These lozenges are quite effective, though they still seem to have the power to make my teeth ache despite being sugar-free. These Puré brand candies appear to be the only brand of gummy they make and come in four flavors, blueberry, pink grapefruit, lemon and grape.

The English on the bag says of Puré blueberry gummy says "blueberry juice that is sweet-sour tasting with the texture of fruit." This statement is half true. These candies are sweet and sour, but the only way they have the texture of fruit is if you're talking about something which resembles thick fruit leather. These gummi feel soft when you squeze them with your finger, but are tough to bite into. It's very hard to bite one in half and then you have to chew on it for a bit to warm it up so it softens. By the time that happens, it's all nearly dissolved in your mouth.


The candies are covered in citric acid powder, but it looks like good old coarse bits of sugar. In fact, one reason I bought these is that they resembled Sunkist fruit gems. Trust me when I say the similarities are all superficial. These are nothing like a fruit gem either in taste or in texture.

When you give the bag a sniff, it smells sour and not overly fruity or perfumey. It doesn't smell much like blueberries, but it does smell a bit like some sort of fruit. Each candy is vaguely heart-shaped. When you first bite into it, you're hit full on with the sour notes, but that gives way to an increasingly sweet taste and finally a pleasantly perfume-like berry taste. The experience is very nicely multi-layered and vastly different from my experience with generally sweet American "blueberry" candy. It's as if the candy changes as you masticate it. This keeps it from being too sweet or too sour.

The ingredients for this are relatively predictable. They include sugar, water, gelatin, concentrated blueberry juice, and pectin. Vitamin C and Calcium are also added in to enhance nutritional value. Each candy is 12.3 calories and has 2.88 mg of Vitamin C. Though you hardly would scarf down the whole small bag at one go, you could easily snack your way through one throughout a day if you kept them in your desk drawer.

I didn't expect to like these much, but I really did enjoy them. They are much closer to the experience of eating a real blueberry taste-wise than I expected. While I'm still not a fan of the rather tough texture, I'll probably buy these again some time when I'm in the mood for a fruit-flavored candy and feeling reckless about my teeth. I recommend giving them a try if your run across them.