Monday, December 4, 2017

Trader Joe's Scandinavian Tidings

You might remember some other Scandies we reviewed on here a while ago. This time, Trader Joe dropped the chuckle-inducing title of "swimmers" and went with "tidings," as in: tidings of comfort and joy or something like that. 

TJ's holds the holiday theme high here, as this product features a bold Christmassy red resealable bag, snowflake art on the packaging, and three ultra-merry colors/shapes/flavors: green trees, red ornaments, and yellowish stars. I say yellow-ish because, well, they're somewhere between yellow and off-white. That's just fine, because they went with vegetable-based coloring in this product, as we've seen from TJ's in the past. We don't need our candy to be electric-neon-radioactive yellow. I'll take the blackcurrant, carrot, and pumpkin colorings any day over "yellow number five" or whatever carcinogenic nonsense the other guys use.


As far as flavors go, there are three distinct tastes. The red ornaments are my favorite, and they taste just like classic Swedish Fish if you ask me. The stars are slightly softer than the other two shapes, and they taste like...I dunno...something sweet. Call me crazy, but I feel like the green trees taste slightly appley. There's no apple listed in the ingredients, so...I guess I could be wrong.

Both Sonia and I would have enjoyed these more if they were sour, in the manner of the legendary T's and J's. And honestly, I think I prefer the swimmers over these. 

Why? Well, at least three out of the four flavors present in the swimmers were pretty tasty. Here, I don't think the flavors are quite as unique or memorable. Plus—there are only three shapes, as opposed to four. I guess you could make a big tree shape out of all the trees in the bag and then pretend to decorate it with the stars and red balls, but that's not nearly as much fun as staging battles between dolphins, giant lobsters, seahorses, and rock fish. 

I mean...not that I actually did either one of those things.

There's certainly nothing wrong with these candies, but they're neither the most fun nor the best tasting gummy candy we've seen from Trader Joe's. It's a decent bit of gummies for $2.99, and the overall quality is on par with what we've come to expect from TJ's. I'll go with three out of five gummy candy Christmas stars. Sonia gives them three and a half.

Bottom line: 6.5 out of 10.

5 comments:

  1. I just found them to be sweet. I couldn't distinguish flavors.

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  2. I couldn't identify the flavors either, but I found them on TJ's website. The star is sparkling grape, the ornament is berry, and the Christmas tree is apple.

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  3. Uggh! I love gummy candies but apparently they are excellent at removing temporary dental work like temp crowns..! (Ask me why i know this) doesn't sound like these are worth hoarding til i can have them, TJs version of swedish fish hit the spot when i need some.
    Ttrockwood

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    1. I am not a gummy connoisseur, but these seem to be extremely soft. You probably wouldn't even need teeth to chew them! The others I've tried have been chewier, which I prefer.

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  4. I love these! My sister and I bought one bag. We opened them in the car before driving away. She looked at me and said, "I think we need to go back in." We both bought two more bags. I have since purchased another one. I love the green stars. I think the red ornaments are delicious, too. The white aren't quite as good as the other two, but I still like them a lot.

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