Hi-Chew Mix – Snoopy Edition

When you’ve had as much Hi-Chew as I have, the word special seems to hold less meaning. A wise man once said to me if someone says sorry often, it loses it’s meaning. I feel like that applies to special and limited editions as a whole. It’s why I rarely apologize. Well, that and I’m near perfect and don’t make many mistakes that require apologizing. Yes, I’m going with that.

I’ve tend to pay less attention when they say limited edition. Not the case today, however. I generally frown on crossovers and collaborations because they seem like cheap ways to get suckers to buy merchandise that would otherwise be pretty plain or boring. Well, I mean that’s still kind of the case. But being a huge fan of Peanuts and Hi-Chew, I am the perfect sucker for this product. It helps that this isn’t just a repackage or reskin of old flavours.

To celebrate the 45th anniversary of Hi-Chew, they released this special edition mix with another one of my loves – Snoopy and Charlie Brown. Normally when they do these kind of products, they just rebrand typical flavours and update the packaging. This one was harder to pass on though, because the three flavours aren’t the typical ones that Hi-Chew does. If like me you are a fan of Hi-Chew, you’ll notice that a vast majority of their flavours are fruit based. There’s the obvious exceptions like yogurt and fruit, or fruit soda flavours, but fruit is most of their portfolio. While fruit is related to these three flavours, they are definitely different from the status quo. This variety has strawberry vanilla ice cream, fruit tart, and lemon mousse. Definitely new flavours for me, so I’m excited to give it a go.

After taking a few moments to appreciate the art and design of the packaging, I tear that bad boy open and am pleased to see a fair distribution of flavours. Unlike my experience with the non-Japan release, this one is more of an even distribution of flavours. In fact, unless my eyes deceive me it appears that it is a perfect distribution of the three flavours – 6 pieces each.

Let’s start with my boy, Charlie brown and his fruit tart. It has a lemon outer layer covering a brown inner layer. The piece smells…well, tart. The outer layer and inner layer have two distinct tastes. The outer is less sweet, and reminds me of citrus flavoured dessert. The inner layer is more of an almost, earthy sweetness. The inner layer really does taste like a cookie crust. It’s like eating a chewy version of a baked cookie. It’s honestly a little weird. The whole thing does kind of come together to remind me of a fruit tart, with the yellow portion having the bright, tart mixed fruit taste, while the crust portion has a slightly buttery, sweet cookie like taste. It definitely reminds me of a pastry, but having had it, I have to wonder if that’s something I actually want. Also, this flavour kind of makes me think of what it would be like if I took one of those fruity car air fresheners and accidentally started chewing it. Not sure how I’d find myself in that kind of situation, but you get the gist.

Moving on to the lemon mousse – unsurprisingly this is yellow throughout, and smells just like a typical lemon flavour. The main difference in flavour here is that there’s an almost, carbonated feel to this flavour, if that makes sense. It’s more like a lemon dessert or meringue – like you took lemon rinds and peels to add flavour to an other sweet meringue. In terms of how well it replicates the actual thing, this is spot on, and feels like I’m eating just the filling off a lemon meringue pie. It’s got a nice sweet, zesty flavour to it.

The next and final one is the strawberry and vanilla ice cream. This smells like the typical flavour (surprise). Though I do have to say it smells a bit sweeter, and I think that’s the vanilla coming through. As far as smells go, I find vanilla has a tendency to overpower most things that it accompanies, so that should give you a general idea of how strong the strawberry smell comes through, that it can go toe to toe with it. The flavour is pretty straightforward on this one, the white outer layer is a sweet vanilla like taste, while the inner pink is the standard strawberry flavour. The combination is exactly what you’d expect, though surprisingly it does remind me of ice cream, more than just a combo of vanilla and strawberry. Imagine chewing on a piece of melted strawberry ice cream. As weird as that sounds, this is basically what it tastes like. If you like strawberry, you’ll like this. The only downside is the vanilla cuts the piece’s tartness, so you only get a hint of the nice floral flavour from the strawberry, and almost no tartness leaving just sweetness. Some people might enjoy this but I’m not particularly fond of it, since it’s too one note. I’m a complicated bear with complicated tastes buds. I need more.

Overall, I’d say that the lemon mousse is actually the winner here. The fruit tart was an admirable attempt, though it made me realize that cookies and crusts, or any pastry in general is not great in the form of chewy candy. The strawberry vanilla ice cream flavour is true to form, but the flavour profile just isn’t for me, so I prefer the lemon more. As much as I love seeing Hi-Chew try new flavours, and doing a crossover with Peanuts, I’m not sure I would get this mix again for any other reason than to have one for collection purposes. Your mileage may vary though, especially if you like the sweetness of strawberry ice cream. For me though, one bag is more than enough.