What’s your fave jelly bean flavour? If you say red, you’re not alone. And you’re about to be very happy.
It is, in fact, the most popular flavour amongst fans of Australia’s most recognisable jelly bean brand, those Glucojel beans you see at pharmacy counters.
Now, if you, like us, peer through the clear bits of the packet to get the one with the most of your fave colour, and that colour is red, there’s good news. Until now, black has been the only Glucojel jelly bean sold in its own packet (because while some love black jelly beans and some hate them, those who love them REALLY love them). But this week, that changes. March 1 sees packets of red beans become a permanent addition to the range.
And those who’ve already managed to get their hands on some are happy peeps.
Traditionally, the mixed bags contain a mix of nine different flavours/colours, from aniseed (black) to apricot (which is the yellow one – not the orange one. That’s, er, orange). What you end up with in your packet depends on what the makers of Glucojel refer to, tongue in cheek, in the FAQ on their Facebook page as a “fancy high tech randomiser machine”. Black, of course, is divisive. Some love it. Some hate it. But the company tells us that their research shows red (raspberry) is the most popular (followed by white and pink), which is why red is now going solo. There's also a competition with $20,000 in prizemoney up for grabs for people who can get creative with jelly beans (the website with details will go live on March 1).
To get us all ready, here’s the cheat sheet on JBs (including a show that’s going behind the scenes at a jelly bean factory that makes some seriously out there flavours. Toothpaste beans, anyone?).
Turkish delight with a twist?
The origins of jelly beans are a bit mysterious – it’s generally accepted that they have been around since the late 1800s, and a lot of origin stories suggest they were inspired by traditional Turkish delight, but no-one’s really sure who invented them.
Funky flavours
Stinky socks. Canned dog food. Toothpaste. Not the flavours you’d expect in a jelly bean, right? But they do exist. The stinky socks and other challenging flavours are made by the Jelly Belly company and sold as part of a range of Bean Boozled products where a series of paired bean flavours look the same but taste different. Baby Wipes or Coconut. (No, we can’t picture what baby wipes taste like either. Who thinks of these flavours??) Stinky Socks or Tutti-frutti. Chocolate pudding or Canned dog food. (And for the Americans – there’s Skunk Spray amongst the shockers.)
Colour me natural
If you think the colours of those classic Glucojel beans have changed, you’re right. But it’s not bad news. These beans have been sold by Australian pharmacies for more than 75 years (they celebrated that big birthday in 2016) and in 2015-16, they gradually changed the formula to use only natural colourings. So some of the beans are lighter in colour than they once were.
Bean there, done that record
No surprises that there’s a Guinness World Record relating to eating jelly beans – but what is surprising is that it involved eating them WITH CHOPSTICKS. The record was set by Asha Leo in Japan on September 6 2017. She managed to pick up and eat 40 of them in one minute.
