Lucky dip? No thanks (Mars Revels)

Member Name: mrsgladwin

Product:	Mars Revels
Date:	23/06/09 (104 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Maltesers

Disadvantages: Coffee and orange... yuck

I am a Malteser addict and whenever hubby and I feel like a treat Maltesers are usually the sweet of choice. However, hubby shocked and saddened me last week by confessing that he was growing a little bored of them. I felt outraged on Maltesers behalf, disloyal wretch. We therefore had to have a wander down the confectionary aisle when doing our weekly shop and look for an alternative. When he suggested Revels I scowled at him until he said "there's Maltesers in there". Hmm. I reluctantly agreed to put them in our trolley whilst staring mournfully at the Maltesers sat there looking dejected on the shelf.

So Saturday night came round, we put our little bambino to bed and cracked open the Revels. Would they be as nice as my beloved little balls of yumminess? Well I shall tell you!

~ What are Revels ~

For those of you who have no idea what Revels are, they are basically an assortment of flavours covered in milk chocolate, made by the people at Mars (at Mars, not on Mars). The idea is that you are never quite sure what flavour you are going to get. The flavours are orange, coffee, raisin, malteser (hurrah!), toffee and what can only be described as a minstrel.

~ Packaging ~

They come in an eye-catching orange, yellow and brown striped pack. The larger sizes tear off at the top and have a sticker that can be used to reseal them and keep them fresh if you're not eating them all in one go. The design of the bag also means that it can stand on one end; helpful if there's a group of you sharing as you can pop it on the table without worrying about them spilling all over everywhere.

The pack also tells us that there are 480 calories in 100g, and over 20g of fat...eek!

~ Price and availability ~

Depending on the size of the pack, Revels typically can set you back around 50p for the small bag and £1.80 for the larger. This obviously varies from store to store and you may be able to pick them up cheaper if they are on promotion.

If you are buying them from the cinema you can expect to pay anything up to about £3 - rip off!

~ So what are they like? ~

So as I said Saturday night came round and we opened the pack while watching the ever so lovely Michael McIntyre. I grabbed one and popped one in my mouth. Oo raisin. Not too bad, rather inoffensive and there isn't much I can say about it other than it's a chocolate raisin.

Feeling bold I reached for another. It was coffee and tasted...revolting. Foul, disgusting, hideously yucky. Considering I don't like coffee at the best of times I was never going to be fond of this flavour but it was the shock of it that upset me. There I was minding my own business and then my taste buds were invaded by this disgusting thing posing as confectionary. You don't get this with Maltesers!

The orange wasn't much better. I'm a fan of fruit creams; I'm always the devil who empties all the Quality Street and Roses out of the tin, grabs the orange and strawberry creams and puts the rest back denying all knowledge. However, this orange sweet was creamy, it was a harder consistency like the coffee one. Yuck.

The other flavours weren't too bad, the chocolatey minstrel thing was fine, a bit boring but at least it didn't make me want to spit it out. The toffee one was also ok, a bit like those gold wrapped long chocolates you get in Quality Street that you feel like you've been chewing on for days.

To prevent any further mishaps I started to gingerly bite into each chocolate and passed any coffee or orange to my husband. Yes I'd already taken a bite out of them but that's what he deserves from betraying Maltesers.

And then, at last, it happened. I bit the top off one perfectly formed circular sweet and was greeted with that delightful "crunch". My tastebuds rejoiced. A Malteser! I savoured it, sucking all the chocolate off and letting the centre just melt in my mouth. Bliss. It was at this point I noticed that all the Maltesers seemed to be perfectly round in shape. I then spent the next couple of minutes fishing out all the sweets this shape and lined them up into a nice little row, admiring my handy work. My husband looked on puzzled and when I explained that I was picking out all of the Maltesers he rolled his eyes and uttered the word "geek". Pah, I didn't care, I happily sat there munching through my little stash.

Revels are advertised as being fun, a bit of a Russian roulette thing going on. I guess the idea is getting variety just from one pack, which would be great if almost 50% of the flavours weren't revolting. Call me peculiar but I don't like surprises, I like knowing what I'm putting in my mouth thank you very much!

All that eating these did was make me appreciate Maltesers more. You know where you stand with Maltesers.

Summary: The coffee ones should come with a warning