Hey Jelly Belly!!! Some Flavour Ideas - Japanese Snacks

Japanese Snacks

All this week we're looking at some new ideas for flavours of Jelly Bellies.  Yesterday we looked at Middle Eastern spices, today it's all about Japanese snacks.

These Jelly Bellies would fall firmly in the middle of tasty candy and gimmick.  Japan is well known for their "weird" selection of candies, so I think this would be a trend that Jelly Belly could hope right on.  Two of these three flavours are not too odd to the North American pallette, and would therefore be a great way to start this line of beans.  There are also hundreds of other strange Japanese candies and snacks that could be turned into beans in the future.  This line would be never ending.

Of the three suggested flavours on this list, taiyaki would probably be the simplest to convert.  The only two issues I could think of with these beans would be the appearance of a fish (even though there is no fish or fish flavour in it), and the idea of red bean in a sweet.  If you've tasted red bean sweets before you'd know that it's not that strange at all, but some might be a little nervous about trying these taiyaki Jelly Bellies for the first time.

Mochi might be one of the weirder ideas I've thought of for Jelly Bellies so far.  It's not strange because the flavour is so powerful, it's strange because the flavour is so weak.  Moochi is just a ball of stick rice that has been pounded so many times that it turns into a sticky ball of goo.  The flavour of Moochi is what you might expect, like that of unflavoured rice.  I've tried it a few times, and each time I keep expecting to find some kind of bold flavour, but I never do.  While this is a strange flavour to choose for a Jelly Belly, it is a popular treat in Japan, and should not be left off the list.

The first two flavours of Japanese Jelly Bellies I feel could be fairly manageable for the average North American, but salted plums might be a little extreme for many.  A real salted plum tastes like a cross between sea water, sour powder from gummy candies, with a slight hint of plum.  The first time you try it is often a bad experience.  Japanese people claim that the taste grows on you, so maybe getting a big bag of salted plum Jelly Bellies is a good idea.

CC