Ever since the departure of the late lamented Smuckers jelly bean, a lot of other branded jelly beans have struggled to take its place.  With varying degrees of success.

First of all I think we need to establish that regular old jelly beans do need a replacement.  When I say "regular old jelly beans" I mean those big honkin' things the size of your thumb, with only the vaguest of flavors.  Licorice jelly beans are always present, which is the scourge of many.  I like the licorice ones, but I always pick them out and eat them separately.  The flavor goes so very poorly with all the others.

Speaking of traditional jelly bean flavors, just what flavor is the white one supposed to be?  I kind of like it, and kind of find it revoltingly sweet-flavored.  Like the icing of a Krispy Kreme doughnut, which as far as I can tell is "icing flavor."

Starburst Jelly Beans

The first branded jelly beans I tried this year were from Starburst.  These were perfectly adequate, tasting as they did exactly of Starbursts.  I guess there's nothing wrong with that, but somehow I expected something more.  It doesn't seem like they went to very much effort.  I picture a sweaty guy with a bushy mustache wearing overalls, pulling this giant lever at the Starburst factory to derail the flavor hose from the Starburst regular candies over to the jelly bean line.

One good thing about Starburst jelly beans is that they passed the "cram a whole handful in your mouth at once" test with flying colors.  This test requires that all the jelly bean flavors work reasonably well together.  As we shall see, some jelly beans failed this test.

Hawaiian Punch Jelly Beans

I'll cop to kind of liking Hawaiian Punch.  I'll buy a can about once every three years or so.  So I was kinda hyped that it came in jelly bean form.

Alas, Hawaiian Punch jelly beans have 5 great flavors and one disgusting one.  It tasted like puke.  I am not exaggerating: I actually tasted bile in the flavor.  In attempting to cross-reference, I believe it was the "Mango Passionfruit" jelly bean which tasted like puke to me.

The other flavors was fine.  You just have to pick out the puke-flavored ones.  It could be worse.

Life Savers Jelly Beans

These were definitely my favorite, of the jelly beans I have tried so far.  (Don't run me down - have you seen the panoply of jelly beans available on the market this year?)  Not only did each flavor taste nice on its own, but they passed the "cram it all in your mouth" test with flying colors.

Life Savers jellybeans manage to ride that fine line between "tasting just like the original candy" and "tasting like something new."  I am not in the habit of eating Life Savers candy (it just seems like such a bad bargain - all that change for like eight little candies?) but these flavors were pleasantly reminiscent of the originals.  Without being as "dead on the nose" as the Starburst jelly beans.

Creative Commons-licensed image courtesy of Flickr user katiescrapbooklady