Katjes – Tappsy
When a product works and becomes successful, the inclination to milk it for the cash cow that it is is understandable. If something works, you want to find new and exciting ways to exploit that and make even more money. Thus is the fate of capitalism. I bring all this up because from the outside looking in, this product seems to be a pretty obvious attempt at cashing in on the success of one of Katjes most popular products. If Percy is so popular, surely they would get some pretty solid success from creating a spin off product with a similar format using a different animal, right?
Similar to Percy Pig or Fred Ferkel depending on your life experiences, these are a foamy candy with gummy ears. At least that’s how it looked when I bought them. Upon opening the package though, the reality is a little different. There’s actually two types of candy here, one where the licorice makes up most of the face and the ears are foam, and the other type where the ears are licorice, there’s a gummy nose and the rest is the foam.
The flavour of the licorice is typical European licorice that’s got a strong herbal flavour to it. The foam part is a berry like flavour that seems to be some sort of combination of cherry and grape, but it’s hard to tell when it contrasts against the very distinct and strong licorice flavour. There’s also a tiny pink nose on the foam heavy piece which is fruit flavoured, but the licorice overpowers it.
The texture of different for each piece because of the ratios. The licorice heavy piece is typical licorice texture where it’s equal parts sticky and equal parts persistent. It’s not quite chewy, and is like chewing into a soft licorice. The foam heavy piece is typical Percy Pig style where it’s like a very dense, squished marshmallow with slightly firm, but also sticky licorice. There’s also a tiny pink nose which is fruit flavoured, but the licorice overpowers it.
I love the Percy format, but if I’m being honest, I don’t know that I would get this again. Something about the licorice sort of throws things off. I enjoy licorice in certain formats, but I don’t seem to like it with these particular combinations of fruity flavours. Suffice to say if you don’t like licorice this is an absolute no for you.
