March 22nd: Nestle Smarties

Kcal 175 Fat 6.5g Fat(sats) 3.7

The Easter bunny isnt supposed to be making his official visit until tommorow but I was a lucky boy and was the reciever of a Smarties Easter Egg today from a kind relative.

Included in this Easter Egg pack were the standard chocolate egg that is included with all Cadburys Eggs this Easter and also two hexatube packs of Nestle Smarties. Tossing the chocolate egg to the side (no time for generic chocolate eggs this year round people!) I opened my first tube of Smarties for a good ten years :) smell??...distinctly lacking - no aroma worth mentioning aside from a slightly sweet smell.

One quick note is that the packaging claims that there is no artifical colourings or flavors...honestly thats a tad puzzling considering the colours these come in!? The blue colour is back!? does anyone care lol not me. Despite the meaningless package claim theres no doubting that they look great, natraul - no? appertising - kinda...intresting and different - definately.

Anyone whose been reading Chocolate Mission thus far will know that sugary shelled products havent been amongst the most highgly rated. I generally find them very artifical tasting (they genereally are!) and many of these products have been too dominated by these overpowering sweet flavours - not a good omen for a product that describes itself as 'milk chocolate in a crisp sugar shell'.

Smarties come in seven colours - all of which are the same in taste with the orange colour aside which has a slight orangey twang to it. Plently of nostalgic feelings quickly filled me as I emptied the contents of one the hexatubes into a bowl - the colours look amazing and although you know they all generally taste the same you cant help but match up your favourite colours and pick out the orange ones - great fun :D

After finally finishing fiddling around playing around matching up the colours (oh come on I cant be the only one) I finally got round to eating them :) Although slightly wary of the sugary shells I really quite enjoyed their presence in the product. The shells are far thinner than their M&M counterparts but still added a nice crispy bite to the product. Their thiness meant that they did not dominate the flavour and the milk chocolate quickly presented itself to the tastebuds and established itself as the dominant ingredient.

Chocolatewise Smarties are rather indifferent, their small size nature meant that whilst the chocolate is not overpowered its not a particularly strong flavour - that being said the blend of the shells and chocolate is overly pleasent and a single tube (38g) is a more than adequete serving size.

The orange Smarties although not plentiful in number (I only got two in a whole pack grrr!) are pleasent and the orange taste is a nice element to throw into the mix - why arent there tubes with just Orange smarties!? I guess this must have been done in some Limited edition capacity already??

Overall theres no doubting Smarties look great in appearance and im sure they probably bring back tons of great childhood memories for many a person. This aside though Smarties are a product that are never going to win any prizes in terms of taste. They are one of those products that are never going to offer an overly differential flavour extravaganza but if its a great looking nostalgic bringing chocolate experience your after, you can go little wrong with Smarties.

7.9 out of 10