Hi-Chew – Heisei Fruits Mix

If there’s anything I’ve learned about Japan and all their crazy varieties and flavours, it’s that they love to do regional specific flavours. This variety isn’t exactly regional specific, but it feels like it’s along the same line of logic. Some of these flavours are apparently the more limited flavours issued throughout Japan in the past. This variety pack is said to commemorate the end of the Heisei period. For those (like me) who aren’t too familiar with politics in Japan, the Heisei period marks the reign of Emperor Akihito, which lasted about 30 years. When the emperor steps down from the throne, it marks the end of that period, and the start of the new one with a new Emperor. As far as I know, this system is similar to the UK where there is a Queen, but in terms of actual political power they hold very little. It’s mostly a system that has evolved over time towards democracy, vs the purely monarchical nature centuries ago.

I won’t get into too much more detail; as fascinating as all of it is, my main concern is what this means for me Hi-Chew wise. I will say though, the packaging does a pretty good job of capturing some key items from the era. I’m mostly referencing the little drawings of pagers and flip phones, to really drive home how long this era really was. The only thing missing is a drawing of a VCR or a laser disk. Ya know, to realllllly date myself.

This mix is comprised of four flavours – according to the website, they are Shine muscat grape, “Skyberry” strawberry, Setoka citrus and Sho-nan Golden oranges. To be frank, I don’t know whether or not I’ve had these varieties of citrus fruit. They look very similar to some of the more regional varieties of citrus specific to Japan and Asia in general, but the names I know them by are Chinese. I never did get confirmation on what the English name of those fruits were. Which makes sense, since they aren’t something you find outside of Asia too often. To a lot of people, an orange is an orange. I’m also embarrassed to admit that I had no idea what a the English name for a pomelo was. I had to describe the strange fruit to my non-asian friends without confusing them even further. I’m guessing the fruit still hasn’t really caught on, cause they still seem confused and confounded by the name pomelo.

While I recognize that there are lots of differences between even regional varieties of the same fruit, when it comes to candies and snacks, they usually end up tasting too similar to tell apart if blindfolded. I’m going in with an open mind though, this is Hi-Chew, and they have a tendency to capture flavours really well. The only one of these four that I know I will love is the muscat flavour. The reason for this is two fold – 1) any variety of grape flavour by Hi-Chew is awesome in my completely objective and unbiased viewpoint, and 2) in terms of grape flavours, Hi-Chew does muscat best. It’s for those reasons that I will be saving that for last.

This package contains 18 individually wrapped pieces, with four of each variety, and strawberry having an extra two. Each of the wrappers seem to have a factoid of some sort on the back. I can’t make heads or tails of any of this so if you know…feel free to fill me in. According to the website there are fun little quizzes, so I’m assuming that’s what the question marks on the wrappers represent. Let’s start things off with “Skyberry”.

I don’t know how the term Skyberry came about, but let’s be cereal. We all know what this is right? Unless it tastes wildly different from the standard strawberry, I don’t see how this will manage to surprise me. But who knows? There’s a first for everything.

Maybe it’s my brutish, lack of sophistication, but I really and truly cannot tell this apart from their standard strawberry flavour that they currently have sitting in Japanese convenience stores. Perhaps it’s ever so slightly more floral? It’s definitely a good flavour, don’t get me wrong. It’s just nothing unique or distinctive enough to hold the title of Skyberry. Apparently Skyberry is the name given to a specific breed of strawberry that is supposedly very tasty, very juicy and very premium (read expensive). The most distinctive feature though, is the sheer size of it. I guess without actually trying one, I can’t say one way or another if this is close to the taste of an actual Skyberry. What I can say is I would do it again. I just wouldn’t pay a premium or anything if I had to choose between this and the regular strawberry.

Sho-nan Golden orange is the next one, in all it’s shiny yellow glory. This kind of threw me off, because based on reading the descriptions, I assumed the orange looking fruit was the Sho-nan Golden orange. As it turns out, golden is meant quite literally – the fruit looks more like a lemon than a typical orange that I’m used to seeing up here in the Northern reaches.

I know this is supposed to be a unique variety of orange, but it tastes closer to a sweeter version of grapefruit than the typical orange flavour I was expecting. It almost reminds me of something between a slightly sweet grapefruit, and a blood orange. It has a nice tartness to it to offset to sweetness, and has a nice complex cirtrus flavour to it. This one was pleasantly surprising for me. I don’t usually like orange flavoured candies, but as far as orange goes, this one was not bad. Not bad at all.

Setoka citrus – which I initially thought would be the yellow, lemon looking fruit is actually the one in the orange wrapper. The fruit on the package reminds me a lot of a clementine or mandarin, and I can’t seem to shake the image of a tiny orange fruit in my hands. I also tend to associate small orange fruits to sweeter varieties of citrus, so I’ll see how close/far off I am.

Look at this thing. LOOK AT IT. Can you really blame me for thinking that this was the orange flavour? I guess the smell would be a giveaway that it’s not orange. The smell isn’t particularly distinct, so it’s hard to go off of that. The taste of it is….familiar, yet hard for me to describe. It reminds me a bit of tangerine. It’s sweeter than the sho-nan golden orange, but has more of that rind flavour to it. I don’t know how else to describe it other than something in between an orange and a tangerine. Not quite as sweet as a tangerine, but not as sour or strong flavour wise as an orange. It’s also not bad, and I kind of prefer it to the Sho-nan golden orange. It’s sweeter while also having more character to it. It has that nice orange rind-ish flavour to it.

I like to save the best (supposedly) for last. Ah muscat, how I’ve missed you. The flavour that got me into Hi-Chews almost a decade ago. To say that I have high expectations of this would be an understatement.

The last two I tried didn’t have too strong of a smell when I opened the package. That was not the case with this muscat flavour. After opening it, I could smell it right away. It smells very similar to the typical grape Hi-Chew, but not quite the same. It has a more “rounded” sweet smell to it. Flavour-wise, it tastes similar to the standard grape Hi-Chew, but like the smell, the flavour is more “rounded” and sweet. It’s almost like the difference in sweetness between an ice wine and a white wine. The concentration of sweetness is stronger in this Hi-Chew vs. the standard one, but in a good way. It’s also very reminiscent of the muscat flavour that got me hooked on Hi-Chews in the first place, so it has that going for it.

To no one’s surprise, the winner in this line up for me is the muscat grape. Trailing in second is the setoka with it’s simultaneously familiar yet intriguing flavour, followed closely by the sho-nan golden orange. The strawberry one isn’t bad, but comparatively to the other ones it doesn’t offer enough for me to rank it over the other ones.

Ignoring the fact that this is a limited edition variety, I would say the flavour mix works well if it were to become a regular offering. Each of the flavours is solid enough you could make this the standard line up and no one would mind. The flavours aren’t far off from their original source flavours so it still has mass appeal. As a limited edition offering though, it isn’t interesting or unique enough to me to be anything to write home about. If you can get a bag of these, go for it, if not for the sole purpose of that muscat (so good). I would just say that it’s a good variety to try, but not different enough that if you can find the standard flavour versions of these and it’s cheaper, go get the latter.