As every Japanese school kid knows, ラムネ (ramune, from ‘lemonade’) is a delicious and cooling bottled soda. As I discovered last year, it’s also nigh impossible to open without spraying yourself full in the face with sugar water. So, in the absence of a lifetime’s worth of training and preparation, I’ve turned to Asahi’s 三ツ矢サイダー (Mitsuya Cider), a drink that is remarkably similar, yet comes with a tabbed can that I can safely open without first donning a raincoat. All this to say, the ‘cider’ has become one of my favorite summer drinks. Asahi sells a variety of candies branded with the Mitsuya Cider name, and I’ll be covering 三ツ矢サイダーグミ (Mitsuya Cider Gummies) today, for the simple reason that I love a good gummy.

The gummies are packed in small bags, each containing sixteen 3g half-spheres, similar in size and shape to Mason DOTS (now sold by Tootsie Roll Industries). The bags, which open easily with a rip, close tightly with a very helpful zipper seal. Typically gummy, each candy is coated with a powder, announced on the box as さわやか (sawayaka, refreshing) and しゅわ (shuwa, ‘bubbly’). I can’t really say I know what it’s talking about, as the powder seems to me simply to add texture. There is a slight soda-y quality to the gummies, like the soda Puccho I reviewed earlier. As of press time, I have found two flavors, regular Cider, and さわかわぶどう(sawayaka budou, ‘refreshing grape’). If I find more, I will cover them in a later review.

The basic cider gummies taste exactly as I would expect, which is to say, sort of like fizzy lemonade. If you’ve never had ramune before, just imagine mixing sour lemonade with soda water, and you have the basic idea. The candies sadly lose out on one of the main benefits of the drink, that it cools you off during a hot day, but  nevertheless, if you’re looking for a sweet lemony gummy candy, I can’t imagine doing much better. They haven’t managed to excite me, though. 3/5

The grape gummies, meanwhile, become overwhelmed with the fake grape taste. I can barely taste the cider flavor, and combined with the powdery outside, these gummies taste a bit like weird chalky medicine. I can’t imagine recommending these to anyone, unless you’re really into fake grape flavoring. 2/5

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