I Plum Forgot How Good Plum Jelly Belly Jelly Beans Were(Until The 10lb. Box!)
Written: Dec 02 '08
Product Rating:
Pros: Decent fruit taste, Environmentally responsible bulk
Cons: No real nutritional value, Becomes generically fruity after a handful.
The Bottom Line: Plum Jelly Bellys taste great for the first handful, but then fade to something less distinctive, so the ten pound box might not be the best investment.
Sometimes, it might seem like I am more harsh than I actually feel I am with my reviews. After all, I try to be thorough and there are plenty of things that are average that I still own and even look forward to eating or using. I mention this as a preface for the Plum Jelly Belly jelly beans because my strict standards knock these wonderful little candies down into "average" territory because of how their flavor fades from plum to something less distinctive. This is, though, one of the most true fruit flavors of Jelly Bellys that is on the market!
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 toasted marshmallow, pina colada (reviewed at: http://www.epinions.com/content_449538985604 ), Dr. Pepper (reviewed at: http://www.epinions.com/content_450144407172 ), or their signature flavor Buttered Popcorn (reviewed at: http://www.epinions.com/content_444919221892 ).
Who needs ten pounds of Plum flavored Jelly Bellys? I suppose anyone who likes to pretend they like fruit but truly doesn't might get by using Plum Jelly Bellys as a placebo. Anyone who might like Plum 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
Plum 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 Plum and they live up to that with surprising accuracy . . . for a time.
Plum 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 ask "Would you rather I throw a plum at you or a plum Jelly Belly?" I suspect that for most people, a ten pound case is a year's supply of these jelly beans.
Plum flavored Jelly Bellys are remarkably easy to recognize and distinguish from other Jelly Bellys as well. They are a lilac with dark purple mottling, which is different from all other Jelly Bellys. There is another purple Jelly Belly (Island Punch) but it is opaque, solid purple, so the lack of a mottling clearly distinguishes it from the Plum flavor.
Ease of Preparation
These are jelly beans, not picking an orchard full of plums before they are eaten by . . . whatever the natural predator to plums is, eats them all. 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, perhaps storing them on some form of mock-bush would work well. One suspects eating them out of the box is fine!
Taste
Plum is one of those flavors of Jelly Belly that seems to be a real catch-22 on the taste front. First, there is no aroma and truth be told, that might be why this is not one of the more enduring flavors of Jelly Belly. The thing is, Plum is a weird case in that it starts out tasting precisely and potently like plums. There is the beautiful mix of sour and sweet and this works astonishingly well as a jelly bean, so much so that it makes one wonder why most jelly bean companies do not make a plum flavored bean.
The unfortunate taste problem for Plum is that the taste rather rapidly fades, not to a generic sugary taste like the worst Jelly Bellys, but to a weird generic fruity taste. After a handful of these Jelly Bellys, they taste more like lemon than plum and this is arguably the most severe (and only) drawback to the ten pound case. Of course, it does encourage rationing when the taste slides from perfectly plum to something more generic.
Nutrition
Again, these are jelly beans, so anyone looking to them for nutrition needs to ask "Would you truly rather eat ten pounds of actual plums?" 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 they aren't real fruit). I've never had Plum Jelly Bellys stain anything. Still, it's pretty wild to eat something so like a plum (as far as taste goes) without having the pits to worry about!
Overall
Quite simply Plum flavored Jelly Belly jelly beans are one of the better flavors of Jelly Bellys, but they are knocked out of a pretty high perch by the fact that they do not seem to retain their true plum flavor over great quantities in one sitting.
One 10-pound bag of plum-flavored jelly beans Zero grams of fat; contains no gelatin, milk, eggs or any other dairy products Certified Kosher, gluten-...More at Amazon
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