Panda Licorice – Natural Strawberry

Panda licorice is one of the bigger brands that comes to mind when I contemplate licorice. Not the plastic texture sticks, but the traditional licorice candy that is ever so popular in Europe (less the salt). It’s been one of my go to brands when I’m craving some more traditional style licorice candy but don’t want something took herbal, as they do some pretty tasty fruit flavours.

One of the first things I notice and I imagine others may too, is that the inside of the bag sometimes looks like it’s sweating. Let me explain – the inside of the bag looks like it has a lot of sticky material or moisture on the side of the bag. This is not surprising, given that this type of licorice is a wheat based snack that’s basically just water and flour.

This should come as no surprise but the texture is fairly similar, if not identical to the other licorice products of the same shape and size that Panda offers. The one thing I will mention is that you might not want to use your hands for these, as depending on your bag, these may be “sweating” so to speak. As a candy, licorice is largely just wheat and water, so these will have a bit of a wet, sticky, moist feel to the touch. That means they won’t leave your mouth dry for the most part, but it’s kinda sticky to handle. I’m not bougie or anything but it’s for this reason I like to eat them with a fork or spoon. You know, so I can keep my hands free to do other, more disgusting things like typing on a keyboard.

The flavour is also very similar to the raspberry one. The only real difference is the slight berry flavour between the two, but through and through the molasses is what really carries the flavour profile here. It’s got a berry forward flavour, meanwhile the deep earthy sweet flavour of the molasses is in the back keeping a close eye on the road. It doesn’t speak much but it’s ever vigilant and makes it’s presence known in a quiet way.

I can’t really say whether I like this or raspberry more, since they are generally quite similar and the underlying licorice flavour is really the big selling point. It’s not too strong but also a great gateway flavour to get people into the more traditional licorice ones, where it’s a bit more herbal and earthy and molasses forward. Either way this is a great starting point and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys licorice or wants to give it a try.