Hi-Chew Umai-Chew Fizzy Grape Soda

I’m not sure why they decided to put this in a short stick format, with only 7 pieces instead of the usual 12 or so. If I were to guess, it may be a combination of fizzy flavours not being as popular with the wider audience as a normal fruit flavour. And because the fizzy fruits are more popular with the kids, it makes more sense to do a short stick because you can sell them for less.

The umai flavours of past had extra sugar crystals to try and deliver more flavour in the standard piece. This particular one is a grape soda flavour, and it’s fizzy so they added extra little candy bits as well as the sugar crystals. This thing is loaded to the brim with other things, it seems. To me this is the fusion of two different styles – umai which is the supposedly more flavourful one with extra flavour crystals, and fizzy which I consider a style in itself given how they just add it on to whatever fruit flavour along with fizzy candy they want at this point. Ultimately what that means is that this has both a different flavour and texture than any of the three other variants, being the normal umai, the fizzy soda variant, and the normal variant.

The texture is not quite the usual chewy taffy affair. The umai sugar crystals add a crunchy that is generally absent in the normal pieces. But wait, that’s not all! They also add in the fizzy candy pellets. I say fizzy but it’s hard to tell if it’s actually a full on fizzy candy or just has a slight fizzing sensation. Either way, the whole thing comes together to be an interesting experience, but also a bit of a mess. I feel like there’s too many things going on, and too much in the way of contrasting textures. I can see how this sort of novelty is great for kids who just want a chewy candy, but this is a bit too unfocused and all over the place for me.

This tastes like what is advertised, which is good or bad depending on what you want. It really does taste exactly like a grape soda, which should come as no shock. It has a decent enough grape flavour but it’s largely competing with a strong soda like flavour and the candy pieces give it a fizzy quality which somewhat impacts the flavour. The one good thing I can say is it definitely reminds you of drinking an actual grape soda. Except this is not cold so that’s a bit of a mind freak.

This is one of those few flavours where I just have to accept that I am not the target demographic. It has a cute idea, but it’s also straying too far from what I want in the classic Hi-Chew experience. Probably trying to capture the younger audience of kids with these, given the smaller stick size that allows them to also charge less. Interesting idea, but just not for me.