Hi-Chew – Soda Mix

I get a little giddy sometimes when I open up a new bag of a Hi-Chew mix. Something about opening up a fresh bag and seeing all those neat, delightfully packaged candies pour out of the bag. I mean, it’s pretty awful for the environment, but apart from that, the more childlike part of me just enjoys seeing so many candies in one place. It’s also why I get a little sad when I’m down to my last three or four, knowing that I’ll have to say goodbye until much later when, and if I ever manage to get my hands on the exact same assortment. But that’s life isn’t it? It’s those small, fleeting moments of joy that make life worth it. Anyways.

This really reminds me of the soda flavours of Puccho. In fact, at first glance of the package, I thought this was some sort of weird collaboration between Hi-Chew and Puccho and I had to do a double take and make sure I didn’t fall into a weird bizzaro dimension.

Taking a closer look, I think you would be able to forgive my confusion – these Hi-Chews also have bits of candy in them. Not only do they have bits of sugar to give the fizzy sensation of soda, they also have little gummy pieces, much like Puccho. I specifically prefer Hi-Chew to Puccho because I find the gummy pieces in the centre don’t add much and the overall chew is better with Hi-Chew since they don’t have to rely on the extra “toppings” as a crutch. But I am a bit curious how the superior candy pairs with gummies.

Let’s start with the soda, or ramune flavour. Ramune is a somewhat lemon tasting soda. Whenever you see something in Japan that’s soda flavoured and it doesn’t specify cola or some other flavour, you bet your dollar it’s ramune. The flavour is very distinct if you’ve ever had ramune or soda flavoured candy, but the best way I can describe it is a carbonated, lemon like flavour.

Cola is a pretty faithful recreation of cola in general. If you’ve ever had those cola hard candies you can get at Asian grocery or specialty stores, you’ll know exactly how this tastes. It’s basically like chewing on a piece of taffy that was flavoured with cola. For me the difference between good cola flavours and bad ones is the aftertaste. This one doesn’t have much of one, or any of the weird aftertastes that bad ones have so I enjoy this quite a bit.

Grape soda is pretty spot on too. When you have grape soda it’s usually a sweet, purple fizzy drink with just a hint of grape. That’s the case here as well and they really capture the essence of what grape soda is. It brings me back to a sunny day of my childhood, outside with a grape Crush soda. It has that sugary soda element to it with just a hint of fruitiness. I like this one best just for the nostalgia.

The texture of these three flavours is similar – instead of the standard solid taffy rectangle, these have little gummy pieces and fizzy candy bits. The gummies are actually pretty soft and mesh into the chew of the taffy really well to the point that you have to really pay attention to even notice it there. It also helps that the fizzy candy has that granular texture to it that kind of balances out the gummy part. It’s surprising that it all comes together fairly well, and unlike Puccho, the gummy pieces don’t take away from anything. I’m actually curious if taking out the gummy would affect the piece at all. As it is though, it works quite well.

Not surprising that the grape soda is my favourite, followed by cola and trailing along is ramune. Honestly, they’re all pretty solid and I would do it again. I would prefer if the ramune flavour was replaced with something else, like maybe an orange soda to get some tangy flavour in the mix, but it’s still good as is.