Hi-Chew – Superstitious Fruit Mix

At a certain point, I will have reviewed enough Hi-Chew products that I won’t be able to say much more. Sure the fruit varieties will be a little different, but I’m not sophisticated or experienced enough to tell some of them apart. Which is a shame since I would love to be able to tell apart all the flavours in those single fruit mix bags without struggling to taste the difference. That being said, it also makes my job progressively easier and easier, as I can just refer you to my older reviews and save myself to hassle of repeating myself.

Today’s mix is called the Superstitious Fruit Mix. Each of these four fruits is considered to bring good look or ward off evil. Beyond that, I’m not sure what makes these fruits special, since I’ve had these flavours in one capacity or another, except the jabara citrus fruit. The other fruits are Tochiotome strawberry, white peach, and banana.

This bag looks to have 4 of each flavour, with the jabara fruit clocking in with an extra 2, bringing the total count to 18. I’ve always kind of wondered how they determine which flavour gets the two extra pieces. I feel like it’s usually the less popular one that gets extras. Or maybe it just so happens that it’s usually the one I don’t like as much. Who knows.

Let’s start off with the flavour I have no prior experience with – jabara citrus. This fruit looks like a lemon, but is a bit different in taste. The flavour is very reminiscent of yuzu, and is apparently a cross between yuzu and pomelo. If you’ve ever had yuzu, it is very similar, to the point that I can’t really tell the difference. If I had to try and describe it, I would say its like the cross between a grapefruit and lime, with some sweetness to it. It’s like eating the rind off a lime, if I’m being honest. It’s quite zesty, but not really tart. If that’s a flavour profile you enjoy, you’ll probably like this. While I don’t like yuzu, I can see myself going for this flavour. The big downside, as with most citrus flavours, is that it leaves a strong taste of rind in your mouth for a while, so keep that in mind. That zest sticks with ya.

Next up is the Tochiotome strawberry. As far as I can tell, there isn’t that much special about these strawberries, other than them being the most commonly cultivated in Japan. That isn’t to say it’s boring or anything, since my fruit experience with Japan has been that all their fruits are delicious (albeit expensive). I can’t really tell if they’re supposed to be any different from the standard strawberry flavour that Hi-Chew has in their standard line-up. It has that nice floral strawberry flavour, with nice little ground up seed pieces to give it a nice extra touch. Nothing special about this flavour, but not bad, considering its popular enough to be in the standard setup.

Moving on, we have white peach. Having tried the four peach mix, I’m expecting it to taste very similar to the white peach that came in that bag.Something that threw me off about this piece’s appearance is that the outside layer has a light pink hue to it, while the inside has a light orange colour to it, making it look quite different from the other pieces I’ve seen. It’s definitely fun to look at, but is it as fun to eat? The answer is yes, yes it is. It tastes near identical to the white peach I had in the previous mix, except it doesn’t have that earthy flavour to start off. It starts off sweet and goes straight into floral, and does not relent until it’s over. It also has almost no after taste, which makes it easy to put more of them back. This one is a solid flavour as well.

Finally, we have banana. I’m fairly certain there’s nothing special about this variety of banana. All in all, I’m not a fan of banana flavoured things in general, because they tend to be very artificial. The smell coming from this piece is no different; I’m instantly brought back to a simpler time, when cold medicine was so nasty they had to mix it with this thick, banana flavoured syrup. It was so thick and milky, and yet so sweet and memorable. I haven’t had anything like this since I was in Korea and had the famous banana milk. You would think that my general disdain of banana flavour would give this an instant strike but for whatever reason, I actually really enjoy this flavour. Something about chewing banana milk appeals to me, as disgusting as it sounds. It may also have to do with the fact that I don’t get much banana flavoured things, so this is a refreshing change.

Overall I’d say this mix is decent. It’s nothing too special, and apart from the jabara fruit, I feel like you could easily find the other flavours as part of the standard flavours. That being said if you don’t want to buy just one of those flavours, and want to try a bunch of them, this is not a bad proposition. Just don’t expect these flavours to blow your mind or reinvent the wheel. It’s pretty standard stuff. But that’s not always a bad thing, since the standard set by Hi-Chew is pretty high, so it’s still good stuff.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go find some banana milk.