Somewhere between a rock and a hard place (Tesco Strawberry Bon Bons)

Member Name: Chelle1969

Product:	Tesco Strawberry Bon Bons
Date:	28/08/09 (135 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Errr... nope, can't think of any

Disadvantages: Too hard

Strawberry Bon Bons are an old fashioned sweet which, for me always conjure up an image of an old fashioned sweet shop with wooden shelves filled with lots of glass jars full of sweeties. Tesco of course, is not an old fashioned sweet shop but I decided to give their bon bons a try anyway.


Packaging
*********
Not too much top say about the packaging, they come in a plastic bag made to look like a pink and white stripy paper bag filled with bon bons. Overall quite attractive looking but a bit wishy-washy.
The back has the usual nutrition info, ingredients, allergy advice, weight and Tesco customer service details


What's In Them?
*************
5 sweets contain:

105 calories (5% GDA)
15.8g sugar (18% GDA)
2.8g fat (4% GDA)
1.4g saturates (7% GDA)
trace salt (<1% GDA)

Allergy Info: Contains soya. Cannot guarantee nut free
Suitable for vegetarians
No artificial colours or flavours


The Look and Taste
****************
If you don't already know, the sweets are "strawberry flavour toffee with a fine sugar dusting" and a 227g bag of bon bons contains approximately 50 sweets

On opening the bag there is an instant waft of 'strawberry' - well actually the artificial sweetness that passes for strawberry these days. Each sweet is about the size of a large marble and coated in pink powder. On taking one from the bag your fingers are instantly coated in pink dust, which annoys me immensely because you have to either wash your hands or lick your fingers every time you have one.

The taste is actually quite nice, very sweet as you'd expect and artificially strawberry flavoured, but not in a bad way. On checking the ingredients there is no strawberry anywhere to be seen, the fruit and vegetable concentrates are blackcurrant, apple and radish, although is does also mention 'natural flavouring' whatever that may be...

So I rolled the sweet around my mouth for a while until all the coating had gone and then I get to the toffee. This always used to be the best part of a bon bon, a delicious chewy creamy toffee with a hint of strawberry flavour. Not this time, boy was I in for a shock. I attempted to chew the toffee and heard a loud crack and experienced a splintering sensation that almost had me running for the number of the emergency dentist. I confess at this point I took the sweet (in bits) out of my mouth to check there were no bits of broken tooth milling about. No, I was lucky it was just the 'toffee' that had shattered. All teeth were still intact. Surely that's not right is it; a toffee shouldn't be that hard? I continued with the sweet, but honestly it was like trying to chew a lump of hard plastic. At no point did it soften to anything like what I class as toffee consistency. Thinking I may have just had a reject I tried another one from the bag, this time being a bit more wary of it and gingerly attempting to chew it. But it was having none of it and I ended up sucking it into submission like a gobstopper. Scary sweets!


Verdict
******
Ignore the fluffy pink exterior of the Tesco bon bons, these tough confectionary boulders are the Arnold Schwarzenegger of the sweet world. If the toffee content in these weren't so hard they would be really nice. Unfortunately they are virtually inedible and I still have most of the bag I bought uneaten. If you're brave enough, they cost around 67p a bag but don't forget to budget for the dentist bill that will surely follow.

Summary: Steer well clear if you value your nashers!