Trolli Sour Brite Jelly Beans

A new challenger from Trolli approaches!

When we last reviewed a Trolli product, the ::inhales sharply:: Extreme Sour Egg Bites Fruitz in 2016, they performed surprisingly well on strong showings in the taste and one-of-each categories. In fact, they remain tied with Gimbal’s Gourmet Jelly Beans for the second highest rating on the site thus far, behind only SweeTarts Jelly Beans.

It’s fair to say I’m going into this review with some high expectations. Can the Sour Brite Jelly Beans live up to them?

Size and shape

The story of this subcategory is quality control, or the lack thereof. While the average size is just right, they swing from petite, Jelly Belly-sized beans to fat beans that almost equal two Jelly Belly beans in volume.

Very little consideration seems to be given to shape, as well. Each is ever-so-slightly elongated and generally round-ish, but the surface of the beans is very uneven. There were also several double beans, a couple pointies, and several shell blemishes.

Not bad, but not good, either.

2 out of 5 beans

Chewability

These remind me very much of yesterday’s Teenee Beanees. Fairly thin shell, just the right toughness on the inside, a very nice chewing experience all ‘round.

5 out of 5 beans

Texture

These bear resemblance to my memory of the Egg Bites Fruitz, but they seem slightly different. I believe the shell is a little bit thinner, and the insides a little more substantial and less like bubble gum. There’s still some of that bubble gum texture, but it’s not as thin, so I rate this as a slight improvement.

4 out of 5 beans

Taste and flavor

The flavors represented by Trolli Sour Brite Jelly Beans are not the most accurate I’ve come across, but they’re quite pleasant, nonetheless. And the flavors do indeed remind me of their well-known gummy worms, Sour Brite Crawlers!

Orange and strawberry are the most accurate flavors. The green apple is a little softer than a real Granny Smith. The lemon reminds me of those lemon drop hard candies that your grandma always had, more so than real lemons.

Cherry is the sourest of the flavors, which are not all that sour, for the most part. The raspberry, which is blue in color, resembles a blue raspberry Icee more than an actual raspberry. I do love a blue raspberry Icee once a year or so, though.

Overall, the flavors are strong, regardless of accuracy. Their vibrancy is a nice counterpoint to the subtlety of the Teenee Beanees reviewed yesterday. Solid effort here by Trolli!

8 out of 10 beans

The one-of-each test

Perhaps the ultimate test of a bag of jelly beans is how enjoyable it is to take one of each flavor and eat them all at the same time.¹

Trolli does well again in this category with their Sour Brite Jelly Beans. We do end up with a bit of a monoflavor situation, losing the individual flavor identities, but it’s a nice flavor. Perhaps owing to the thin shell, the flavor doesn’t coalesce around white sugar, unlike most of the beans that end this test in a monoflavor. The one flavor I can make out throughout the experience is that rich, sour cherry.

7 out of 10 beans

Conclusion

Another strong showing from Trolli! They didn’t score quite as high, but this definitely makes me want to revisit the Egg Brites Fruitz after the conclusion of this season.