Sour Assortment Jelly Belly Jelly Beans - 10 lbs bulk
Click to buy directly from Jelly Belly!
Click to buy directly from Jelly Belly!
The Good: Some good flavors, Environmentally responsible bulk, Interesting concept
The Bad: Some real dud flavors, Coloring is too close on some beans.
The Basics: With only one outright dud and several flavors worth having on their own, the Sour assortment of Jelly Belly jelly beans is worth picking up in quantity!
Sometimes, the best choice one may make is to not choose at all. It is for people who do not like making choices that full assortment packs of products are made. Sampler packs and assorted mixes are for those who can't decide or want the best of all that is out there. So, when considering the Sour Assortment of Jelly Belly jelly beans, the ten-pound box may work out better for groups of people who do not know if they truly like the individual flavors or not. Having a sour party? This assortment in this quantity may be the way to go!
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 Plum, Juicy Pear, Caramel Apple or their signature flavor Buttered Popcorn.
Who needs ten pounds of Sour Jelly Bellys? Anyone who likes to pucker up! Anyone who might like Sour Jelly Belly 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
The Sour Assortment of Jelly Belly Jelly beans is a mix of ten flavors of Sour Jelly Bellys:
Sour Strawberry
Sour Peach
Sour Apple
Sour Cherry
Sour Grape
Sour Orange
Sour Raspberry
Sour Blueberry
Sour Watermelon
Sour Lemon
The only outright dud in the assortment is Sour Strawberry and Sour Lemon is a perfect flavor! Jelly Belly jelly beans are approximately one half inch long by one quarter inch wide and they are roughly bean-shaped.
The Sour assortment of Jelly Bellys 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, go throw a sour party! I suspect that for most people, a ten pound case is a year's supply of these jelly beans.
There are only ten Sour flavors and they are generally easy enough to tell apart. For example, the pink Sour Strawberry and the red Sour Raspberry are easy to differentiate from one another, despite both being reddish. However, Sour Peach and Sour Orange are both orange/yellow and they are harder to distinguish from one another. As well, Sour Apple and Sour Watermelon are both green and Sour Blueberry and Sour Grape are both close shades of blue. Still, once one starts eating them, it is easy to tell which are which by the subtle color differences. All of the Sour line Jelly Bellys are opaque.
Ease Of Preparation
These are jelly beans, sorting through the assortment to see if one gets about a pound of each flavor (they do!). 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, they become no less sour if you leave them out or have the box open! Eat them freely from the box or however you please!
Taste
The Sour Strawberry Jelly Bellys taste one of two ways after the consumer initially smells them. Some are delicious, slightly tart jelly beans that taste quite truly of strawberry. They are not the manufactured, produced flavor we are conditioned to think is strawberry from candles and candies. Instead, that initial strawberry flavor is slightly tart and wonderfully fruity. It could be the perfect embodiment of strawberry. But place the next Sour Strawberry Jelly Belly on your tongue and it is likely to be rank, generically fruity and utterly unpalatable. The lesser Sour Strawberry Jelly Bellys appeal to those who like turned food and they are nauseating with the way they cut through the tastebuds and make one gag on how sour they are. These truly sour Sour Strawberry Jelly Bellys are also only marginally strawberry flavored. Instead, they are more generically fruity.
When one puts the Sour Peach Jelly Belly on their tongue, the instant flavor is sweet. These Jelly Bellys taste exactly like canned peaches and playing with them over the tongue, the consumer is rewarded with a taste that is exactly like sweet peaches and they are likely to reach for more. And about the time it takes one to reach out for the next bean or handful of beans is when the taste turns. The Sour Peach Jelly Bellys suddenly lose their sweetness and taste more like plums, sour and enough to make the mouth pucker up. In fact, the ideal way I can explain the taste of Sour Peach Jelly Bellys is that when my partner had one she smiled, said, "mmmm" and when she inhaled to reiterate the pleased noise, her face screwed up into an expression of pain and disgust. At that point, she asked me why I would do this to her and, sadly, I had no good answer.
The Sour Apple Jelly Belly tastes just like green apples . . . with a kick. The flavor is sweet, then turns sour in a delicious way destined to please anyone who actually likes sour candies. The Sour Apple Jelly Belly is a flavor that is instantly recognizable to anyone who has ever had green apples that are unsweetened. They are flavorful and tart, but not at all unlikable.
Sour Cherry might as well be called “cough syrup!” Less sour than most of the Sour Jelly Belly flavors, the coating is tart and cherry and when one bites into the Sour Cherry Jelly Belly, the sweetness is released. The resulting explosion of taste is precisely the flavor of cherry flavored cough syrups. I'm not even going to pretend to try to be able to elaborate on what that flavor is like, except that it is not actual cherries
Sour Watermelon Jelly Bellys have a faint fruity scent to them and they do smell just like watermelon does. They smell more in their box than they do when they are left open. The scent is pleasant and they adequately prepare the consumer for the taste of these jelly beans. Therein lies the problem with the Sour Watermelon Jelly Bellys. The Sour Watermelon Jelly Belly is like a sucker punch to the consumer. It rolls over the tongue sweet and the perfect embodiment of the subtle taste of watermelons. Then, after about fifteen seconds, the taste turns and it becomes a generically sour, fruit flavor that is as likely to make a consumer gag as it is to please them. The sour flavor starts subtle, but the more of these beans one has, the more overwhelming the sourness is. Still, it maintains a general flavor that is consistent with watermelon up until the moment the taste goes foul.
Sour Raspberry Jelly Bellys have no discernible aroma to them, even in quantities like the ten pound box. This can be alarming to consumers because this provides another way in which they may not be prepared for the sour nature of the jelly bean. When one puts the Sour Raspberry Jelly Belly on their tongue, though, they are likely to discover the scent adequately prepared them for the tang of this Jelly Belly, but not the full flavor and richness of it. This bursts on the tongue like an appropriately sweet raspberry before giving a slight, juicy kick of sour. The sour, though, is in no way overwhelming and these Jelly Bellys are very much like a sweetened, pacified version of the raspberry flavor that those who have had such things as raspberry patches in their back yard would be familiar with. The taste has a minor sour flavor to it, but even after the slight kick of the sour taste, the Sour Raspberry reinforces with a wash of sweetness as it goes down the throat. All the while, the fruit flavor is precisely that of raspberries, but they are a pacified version of that fruit . . . or maybe a version that just isn't as twisted to sour as the other Sour Jelly Belly jelly beans.
The Sour Blueberry Jelly Belly jelly beans taste like actual blueberries and this is a real treat for those of us who like blueberries. As a result, they burst on the tongue with a flavor that is sweet and fruity before turning slightly tart. The surprise to fans of the blueberry will be in how the Sour Blueberry Jelly Belly does not have a taste that spreads. Blueberries, being somewhat fluid inside tend to spread their taste with their juice when they pop. Sour Blueberry Jelly Bellys may be split, but the flavor remains concentrated on the tongue wherever the jelly bean is.
Sour Grape Jelly Belly jelly beans taste like an unsweetened grape juice from concentrate that has turned, like a red wine before it reaches its full potential. The taste is clearly that of grape, though it is the grape flavor that we consider grape, not the even more sour taste of actual grapes. Ironically, had Jelly Belly made a simple authentic grape flavor, it would have qualified as Sour Grape. Instead, this tastes like Bubble Yum's grape flavored bubble gum that one started chewing right after putting a Sour Patch Kid in their mouth.
When one puts the Sour Orange Jelly Belly on their tongue they get overwhelmed with a concentrated burst of orange flavor. It is almost exactly like the taste of orange juice after brushing one's teeth when the toothpaste and the citrus acids collide and the orange does not taste quite right. The shell of the Sour Orange tastes like superconcentrated, unsweetened oranges and it is only by biting into the jelly bean that one gets the flavor of a more well-rounded orange. The center tastes more like sweetened orange juice and the taste washes over the tongue line a relief from the mouth-puckering initial taste. Throughout the flavor is consistently orange, but the Sour Orange goes from tasting like a rancid orange to a truly delicious, juice-filled orange.
When one puts the Sour Lemon Jelly Belly on their tongue they get exactly what they would expect from a lemon-flavored jelly bean. This tastes precisely like lemon and the longer they are on the tongue, the more sour they get. However, they never burn out the tastebuds, so this is a very true lemon taste experience. At the end of the day, though, it leaves remarkable little to write about because the Sour Lemon taste exactly like what they are supposed to; lemon with only a hint of sweetness to them.
Nutrition
Again, these are jelly beans, so anyone looking to them for nutrition needs to understand they are designed to compete with Sour Patch Kids and other sour candies, so they're not going to be terribly nutritious! 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! Some Vegans consider the wax in the coating in the Jelly Belly jelly beans to be not Vegan compliant. I suppose it depends on just how strict a Vegan your Vegan is, if this matters at all. Generally, they are animal free! Jelly Belly jelly beans 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 and this assortment isn't going to last six months, one way or the other!). 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 cool 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 (though it's never a bad idea to wash one's hands). I've never had Sour Jelly Bellys stain anything.
Overall
The Sour assortment of Jelly Belly jelly beans might not be my absolute favorite assortment, but Jelly Belly deserves a lot of credit for getting the flavors right! Anyone who likes sour candy will devour these by the handful!
For other Jelly Belly flavors reviewed by me, please check out:
Citrus Assortment
Bubble Gum
Strawberry Cheesecake
7/10
For other Jelly Belly jelly bean reviews, please be sure to visit my index page on the subject by clicking here!
© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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