Katjes Wonderland – Sour Gummies

I previously tried Katjes pink assortment which reminded me of my childhood. It was like eating fruit candies from way back in the day, both in a good and bad way. Good because it reminded me of a simpler time, but bad because it didn’t wow me either. But I like to try things out and Katjes seems to have a very wide variety of options so I figured sour gummies would be a safe mix.

The interesting thing about these is that they are plant based gummies. The standard practice for gummies (and some chewy candies) is to use gelatin to get that distinct bouncy texture. It’s quite difficult the emulate the same texture as gelatin, but there are a lot of techniques used to try to get as close as possible.

The texture of these remind me of a sour candy ribbon that I would get as a kid. The aren’t quite as bouncy and gummy as a standard gelatin gummy, and are a bit softer and end up more like a really dense fruit snack. That’s not to say these aren’t good, just that if you’re expecting a firm bouncy chew like Haribo, you won’t get that here. I will say that something about the sour coating tends to hide a lot of things, and helps to cover up the stickiness and the lack of bouncy chew. This is one of the few cases where I find the sour coating helps the texture than the non-sour versions.

There are five flavours here – passion fruit, lime, raspberry, orange, and blackcurrant. Passion fruit is the only odd one out, but I’m interested to see how they do it. The lime is pretty standard affair, as is orange. Citrus flavours just seem to be easy replicate. The raspberry is very floral, but not really in a way that reminds me of raspberry. It reminds me more of some sort of rosewater flavour than anything. Passion fruit is interesting but not what I tend to associate with most candies trying to copy that flavour. It’s not quite as distinctly floral but still interesting to try. The blackcurrant is by far my favourite flavour as it hits the right balance of tart and berry flavours, and seems to have the strongest flavour as well.

While by no means impressive in any way, it’s a decent option if you want to try something new, and I would contemplate getting this again if I get bored of my standard go to options. Between this and the pink assortment I tried, this one blows it out of the water and I would recommend this over that one if it’s your first go with Katjes.