Taste Test: Razzberry and Crème D'Orange M&Ms
Due to popular demand and the fact that we love trying weird foods and candies, The A.V. Club will now regularly feature "Taste Tests." Feel free to suggest disgusting and/or delicious new edibles for future installments.
Razzberry M&Ms;
Crème D'Orange M&Ms;
Pity the marketers behind ubiquitous products like Coke, Doritos, and M&Ms;: Sure, market saturation is profitable, but it also makes it difficult to find new customers or expand existing market shares. Which means new products and new directions are constantly necessary. That and consumers' growing infatuation with fancy and flavored chocolates helps explain why M&Ms; have recently expanded into dark-chocolate territory, and why we're now getting fancy fruity M&Ms; to boot. What's next, cashew-and-currant M&Ms;? (If so, we'd be happy to try them.)
Taste: Razzberry M&Ms; (which come in a monochromatic hot pink) and Crème D'Orange M&Ms; (which are neon orange) both have strong, somewhat chemical fruity flavors. They're smaller than peanut M&Ms; but bigger than the plain ones, which makes them a slightly more substantial snacking experience and leaves quite a bit of room for chocolate under that familiar crunchy candy shell. In both cases, the fruity flavor is strong enough to overpower the chocolate, and the taste hangs around in the mouth almost as long as that fuzzy-toothed feeling that comes with all the sugar in the candy coating. It's worth noting, though, that the raspberry ones are straight milk chocolate, while the orange ones consist of a flavored layer of slightly waxy flavored white chocolate around a milk-chocolate center. If there's an actual "crème" element to them, it's lost under the overbearing, astringent citrus flavor. It's a bit like eating Skittles and plain M&Ms; at the same time.
Office reactions: [Crème D'Orange:] "Tastes like a much fancier candy." "Or like orange cough syrup." "The taste… lingers… a bit, doesn't it?" "Ooh, I don't like that at all. Tastes like that cleaning product you use on your windows." "Meh." "Seriously, a strong aftertaste." "The orange really overpowers the M&M.; More an orange candy than an M&M.;" "Not bad, but very strong." "Like a non-frozen creamsicle." "Interesting concept. Huh." "Quite possibly the perfect food. They both are." "Too many things going on. The raspberry ones are a lot simpler."
[Razzberry:] "Way better than the orange." "Good stuff! Reminds me of chocolate cake with raspberries on it, at a wedding or something." "It's like chocolate Robitussin. Doesn't mean I won't eat it, though." "I like the texture." "Chocolate and raspberry are a perfect combination, but the raspberry aftertaste worries me. Hm. It's still there, but it's still pretty good. Still, at some point you want actual chocolate and actual raspberries." "Reminds me of a synthetic version of Trader Joes' raspberry sticks." "They're both really cough-syrupy." "Like eating a cheap raspberry candy and then an M&M.;"
Where to get them: In theory, wherever M&Ms; are sold, though it seems like high demand or short supply guarantees that they quickly disappear. We've seen the raspberry ones briefly at 7-11s and CVS, and in a huge display at Wal-Mart; we found a single package of the orange ones at Target. Mars says the raspberry M&Ms; will only be in stores for six weeks; the orange ones don't appear to have hit wide release. Happy hunting.