Revel In The Coffee, Toffee, Orange Malteser Madness! (Mars Revels)

Member Name: GramiWay

Product:	Mars Revels
Date:	10/08/09 (112 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Different idea, some old favourites like malteser and minstrels

Disadvantages: Flavours might not appeal to everyone

Chocolate is something that most of us enjoy. I wonder if there were a survey how many people would class themselves as a chocoholic?
Anyway adding a new twist to the world of chocolate as we know it are Revels. I like to class them as the 'lucky dip' of the chocolate community.
Revels are made by the Mars company who have of course brought us the Mars chocolate and Galaxy amongst other tasty treats. Revels come in a bright packet with the colours orange, brown, red and yellow dominating the packaging and small pictures of the inhabitants against the large white writing telling you what you're buying

Revels are available in a standard size bag like Maltesers and can also be purchased in much larger bags fit for sharing or for a movie.
The beauty of Revels is that there are five types of chocolates in one packet. OK so this is probably going to put a lot of people off as the flavours are rather odd and not really the sort you'd expect to get people buying in their droves.

- The Sweets -

1) The Malteser
The classic little ball of floaty goodness is here! Maltesers are their usual taste of heaven. A small chocolate ball that has a delicious honeycomb centre that just sticks to your taste buds the moment you bite into it.
The chocolate coating isn't that thick meaning that the sweet focuses more on the delicious centre. They are also the largest sweet in the Revels catalogue so are easy to spot.

2) The Orange One
These have the same shape as the Malteser but are smaller. With a warm and tasty chocolate coating, inside is a gorgeous sort of orange creme that isn't runny just nice and soft when you eat it. The orange taste isn't as overwhelming as I'd hoped but it does have a very nice texture and works well with the different taste of chocolate. These
are my favourite.

3) The Coffee One
Unfortunately coffee is back! The downside is that these are the exact same shape and size as the orange flavoured Revel which means you have no idea which is which until you've actually bitten into it. Using the traditional chocolate casing, there is a sort of brown, coffee creme inside.
I'm not a big coffee fan but I can eat this as like the orange, the taste isn't that strong at all. You can tell it's coffee obviously but it's just a mild shock to your taste buds when you first bite into it and then the taste is sort of swallowed up by the chocolate making it harmless.

4) The One With The Raisin
Sounds like a cool Friends episode non? This is basically a simple and boring raisin encased by chocolate. I don't mind these either but they're very plain and ugly looking. They come in a variety of shapes but you can usually tell them apart as they not circular and look rather squashed up due to the raisin being dipped into chocolate. The chocolate is a poor
addition here as it adds nothing to the flavour if only to make the sweet taste really sickly. The raisin also tastes plain and boring. It hardly makes me revel in the excitement!

5) The Toffee One
Like the raisin except with a hard toffee centre. Not nice on the teeth and also with a trace of caramel that does make it taste nice.

6) The Minstrel
Adding another classic sweet to the mix comes the Galaxy Minstrel. These are available separately but here they add a true chocolate inclusion to Revels. Whereas all the other sweets hardly use any chocolate at all - the minstrel is all about the brown goodness. It's almost flying saucer shaped and is pure chocolate in the middle with a harder casing.
Sadly, I don't think they're the real minstrels as the outer shell isn't as dark or as tasty as the Galaxy ones. However, they're still gorgeous and it's nice to know that you're still getting 100% chocolate with this product.

Revels are a brilliant confectionary idea to share or to indulge in by yourself. They're very distinctive and not like anything else on the market.

The makers seemed to have veered away from more attractive flavours in favour of fillings like coffee or the bizarre idea of the raisin in chocolate but none of the sweets tase awful, they're just different
and that is the reason for their popularity. Despite what the adverts decipher, unless you wear a blind-fold or don't look at what goes in your mouth, they're very easy to tell apart except for the orange and coffee ones. I also don't like how there seems to be far more of the unpopular flavours like coffee and raisin in every bag of these I try!

I guess the only major downside to these is if any of the sweets within Revels are not to your taste or if you're fussy about the way you eat your food etc. They're not sickly sweets as there's not enough chocolate and the fillings aren't exactly to die for, so you can eat them in moderation without feeling bloated.

That doesn't mean they're fat free as there are 480 calories in a 100g packet!

Revels just seem to be an interesting novelty that are rather hit n miss. I wouldn't waste a lot of money on them unless you're really into them and you've never tried them before I'd suggest purchasing one of the standard sized bags for about 50-60p. The larger bags are usually about 1.55 from most supermarkets though are often in offers.

Summary: Boots Mix N Match but with chocolates