Chewy Lemonhead – Redrific

I haven’t had Lemonheads before and I’ve always wondered what they were like. These aren’t technically the original as these are the chewy kind, but I figured I’d dip my toes into this classic and ancient brand of candy. I find it hard to believe I would enjoy the original candy, since it’s a panned candy and I’m a bit over that phase in my life at this point.

These come in a really wide variety of shapes – none of them are particularly uniform, and it kind of seems like the shape was based on whatever got rolled up into a ball. They range from smaller than a penny, to the size of a Cadbury Mini Egg. They come in four different flavours – wild cherry, watermelon, strawberry and raspberry lemon. Truthfully the colours are so close to each other I can only really tell if something is more deep red or pink.

The strawberry flavour reminds me a bit of mild, sugary strawberry flavouring that I had as a kid in medicine. It’s not bad but nothing special. It also seems like this flavour makes up most of the bag.

Watermelon is like a very generic, artificial flavour that reminds me more of watermelon rind than the watermelon flesh. Something about it tastes like the white part of the watermelon right before the skin.

The raspberry lemon flavour is the only one that is remotely tart or sour, and even then it’s more like a sweet lemonade with a very subtle berry after taste. Nothing special, but I enjoyed this more than the watermelon or strawberry.

Wild cherry is the stronger flavour and reminds me of the very strong cherry flavoured cough drops I enjoyed as a kid. Also one of the flavours I enjoyed in lollipop or hard candy form, so this one is probably my favourite out of the bunch. If nothing else, this is one of the flavours that hits the right nostalgia notes. It seems the darker coloured ones are the winners in this assortment.

The texture is basically of a jelly bean – it’s got a candy coating flavour on the outside, and the inside is a sticky, somewhat chewy center. The whole experience is the same as any jelly bean that isn’t Jelly Belly – it’s very grainy and the center is very obviously just a sugary sphere of stickiness.

I’m sure if I had these when I was younger, I would enjoy them more and maybe have more nostalgia towards them now. As it is though, they just sort of taste like a typical, cheap generic jelly bean to me. I could see this being a fun mix for a younger kids, but not something I would get for myself. I am however, still curious about the original Lemonhead…