Orange Juice Jelly Belly Jelly Beans - 10 lbs bulk
Click to buy from Candy.com!
Click to buy from Candy.com!
The Good: Great, precise orange juice taste, Environmentally responsible bulk
The Bad: No real nutritional value, Some are not as strong as others.
The Basics: A great flavor of Jelly Belly jelly beans, Orange Juice is strangely hit or miss with some of its beans!
There's something terribly disappointing about loving something for a while and then discovering a flaw in it, especially after one has eaten a lot of something. With Orange Juice Jelly Belly jelly beans, it took working my way through most of a ten pound case before discovering that Orange Juice Jelly Bellys are strangely inconsistent bean to bean. Unlike most Jelly Bellys I've tasted which taste virtually identical bean to bean, Orange Juice seems to be plagued by some beans that are virtually tasteless, mixed in with the ones that taste precisely like Orange Juice. There are no structural differences or ways to tell the difference between the good beans and the bad ones, but after going through a case, I've found perhaps one in ten is not up to the standards of the other nine. This, of course, is a jelly bean tragedy.
For those who might never have had Jelly Belly jelly beans, these are easily the best jelly beans on the planet, packing a lot of flavor into a very small size. Unlike most jelly beans which are only vaguely flavored and are more based on colors, Jelly Belly jelly beans have a wide variety of actual flavors, like Cantaloupe, Pomegranate, Sour Peach, or their signature flavor Buttered Popcorn.
Who needs ten pounds of Orange Juice flavored Jelly Bellys? Well, I live near Syracuse, New York where the local teams are the Orangemen (I've never bothered to find out the origins of that: this is apple and grape country) so when making things to sell Orange fans, this helps! I suppose those who like to pretend they are drinking their fruit could be happy with this quantity of Orange Juice Jelly Belly. Anyone who might like Orange Juice jelly beans will likely find that this is the best way to get them in bulk in an environmentally responsible way for the least amount of money.
Basics
Orange Juice is a flavor of Jelly Belly jelly beans. Jelly Belly jelly beans are approximately one half inch long by one quarter inch wide and they are roughly bean-shaped. These little candies are marketed to taste precisely like Orange Juice and they live up to that with surprising accuracy (at least the ones that taste like anything at all!).
Orange Juice flavored Jelly Belly's are available in a wide array of quantities, but the largest quantity available is the ten pound bulk case. This is a decent-sized box with a plastic lining and while some might wonder why anyone would need a ten pound box, I say "Get your Orangemen Jelly Bean bottle here!" I suspect that for most people, a ten pound case is a year's supply of these jelly beans.
Orange Juice flavored Jelly Bellys are remarkably easy to recognize and distinguish from other Jelly Bellys as well. They are a translucent orange color without any markings. This makes it easily distinguished from peach and the Orange Sherbet is both brighter orange (like neon) and opaque.
Ease Of Preparation
These are jelly beans, not squeezing ten pounds of oranges to get a single glass of orange juice out of it. Preparing them is as easy as opening the box and popping one (or a handful) into your mouth. In the case of the ten pound box, one might want to put them in a candy dish of some form as opposed to always going into the box. Then again, you could always just pour them into a glass or pitcher and store them there! There is no inherent adverse effect to eating them directly from the box.
Taste
Orange Juice is a perfect Jelly Belly in terms of taste. This bean does not seem to have an aroma, even when in the ten-pound case. That can be a little disconcerting, until one bites into a bean.
Orange Juice jelly beans taste exactly like orange juice, the concentrated fruit flavor of juice as opposed to the actual fruit. There is a strong citrus taste and this is one of those Jelly Bellys that wows the consumer with exactly how it tastes like what it is. If one were to solidify a glass of orange juice, this is exactly what it would taste like!
The flaw, as mentioned before, is that about one in ten of these perfect little beans tastes generic and sugary. It has nothing to do with the number of beans one consumes in one sitting; so this is not the classic Jelly Belly problem of taste fading. Some of the beans are simply - and troublingly - tasteless. But the ones that have flavor are universally concentrated orange juice. It's amazing!
Nutrition
Again, these are jelly beans, so anyone looking to them for nutrition needs to understand they are not a substitute for actual orange juice. Jelly beans, even Jelly Belly jelly beans, are not a legitimate source of nutrition. These are a snack food, a dessert, and are in no way an adequate substitute for a real meal. A serving is listed at thirty-five beans, with each Jelly Belly jelly bean having approximately four calories. This means that in a single serving, there are 140 calories, which is 12% of your daily recommended intake.
The thing is, Jelly Belly jelly beans are not as bad as they could be in the nutrition area. They have no fat and no protein, but for those who have ever dated a Vegan, these are Vegan compliant because they contain no gelatin! They have only one percent of the daily sodium with 15 mg and they are gluten free! The main ingredients are sugar, corn syrup and modified food starch, so it's not like this is an all-natural food, but they could be far, far worse.
Storage/Clean-up
Jelly Belly jelly beans have a shelf life of approximately one year and I have yet to run across a stale Jelly Belly (though that could have something to do with a package never surviving a year around me . . .). They remain freshest when they are kept in an airtight container (the bag in the bulk box is sufficient if it is kept closed) and they ought to be kept in a lukewarm environment. Storing them in hot places is likely to make the beans stick together and be gross. Kept in a cool, dry place, the beans retain their flavor perfectly.
As for cleanup, unless one allows the Jelly Belly to get hot to the point that the waxy coating on the bean melts, the dyes on these do not bleed or denature, so there is usually no cleanup necessary, not even washing one's hands after eating them (always wash your hands before eating Jelly Bellys, even if you don't have to hand-squeeze these beans). I've never had Orange Juice Jelly Bellys stain anything. Still, it's pretty wild to eat something so like a Orange Juice (as far as taste goes) without it actually being a liquid!
Overall
Orange Juice Jelly Belly jelly beans taste great - those that are blessed with flavor - but are knocked out of perfection by having a strange number that do not appear to have any flavor at all.
For other Jelly Belly flavors reviewed by me, please check out:
A&W Root Beer
Sour Strawberry
Chocolate Pudding
8/10
For other food or drink reviews, please be sure to check out my index page on the subject by clicking here!
© 2011, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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