I'd almost rather eat some of those Beanboozled flavors!

Nerds® Bumpy Jelly Beans

As Easter draws near, the jelly bean shelves in my local stores start to fill. Sometimes I’m desperate enough for a new and different taste to buy before the day-after-Easter sales, which is why I brought home a bag of Nerds® Bumpy Jelly Beans from the local Kroger. At least they were on sale, setting me back only two bucks for a 13-ounce bag.


They’re clearly Nerds®, the slightly sour confection (and I use that word loosely) apparently aimed at adolescents who still find the word a little titillating. That titillation is probably because of the word’s similarity to “turd,” though heaven only knows what a Nerds fan would think of “titillation.” Probably much the same as “Lake Titicaca,” a favorite of eleven-year-old geography students. But I digress: I’m here to talk about the beans.

They’re bumpy, I’ll give them that much. The bag has only four colors – I hesitate to call them “flavors” – yellow, orange, pink, and purple. They’re the size of the gourmet beans, but that’s about the only thing they have in common with Gimbal’s and Jelly Belly beans. All four colors have a thick, brittle, bumpy candy shell and the same translucent, gummy center composed almost entirely of sugar and cornstarch.

The four colors are ostensibly flavors, including a slightly sour lemon (yellow); an odd, perhaps watermelon flavor (pink); a sweet, decidedly grape flavor (purple); and an almost bitter, sour orange (orange). The bumpy texture consists of tiny balls that have been smooshed together to make the shell; when it’s bitten the shell disintegrates into a mouthful of the little balls.

I find the texture of the shell off-putting, and the texture and flavor of the filling so nondescript that it belongs in the 99¢ bags you find in truck stops. Most assuredly, not recommended for fans of quality jelly beans. If you like Nerds®, well, you’re on your own. About the only redeeming factor of these beans is that there is no licorice!

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