One of my all time favorite candies is Sour Patch Kids, and sadly they aren’t widely available in Japan. I love sour and sweet candy and I love how the exterior is slightly crisp and the interior is soft and squishy. I find any product with this contrast of flavor and texture very appealing, so I grabbed three packages of Kanro’s Puré Gummy (ピュレグミ) when faced with the decision of my next review.

Puré Gummy currently comes in five flavors; lemon, grape, peach, yuzu, and ume. I could only find the lemon, grape, and yuzu when I was at the conbini, but I’ve had peach in the past. Peach is a permanent flavor and I think that retailers might be replacing it temporarily with the new yuzu and ume flavors. All the candy comes in small resealable packets of about fourteen gummies for 100 yen. I consider the packaging of this product to be very Japanese since there is such a small quantity of candy in a small resealable bag… basically it took a lot of self control on my part to have to reseal the bag. The packaging advertises the candies as being sour (すっぱいい) and having the texture of fruit (果肉食感).

All the gummies are heart shaped and about an inch across, and a quarter of an inch thick. They are coated with a layer of rough sour (citric acid?) powder and sugar. When squeezed, the gummy is firm and bouncy. The texture is the same no matter the flavor, and is softer then gummy bears, but firmer then fruit jellies. I think the softer texture comes from the addition of pectin to the gelatin base. All flavors have concentrated fruit juice listed in the first five ingredients, but the amount doesn’t seem to be enough to taste under the sugar. When the sour exterior is sucked off the gummy is translucent. I have a high tolerance for sour, and found all three flavors to be tart, but not a sour as many candies found in the states. Kanro warns that these are not appropriate for people with soy allergies.

Lemon is a permanent flavor and smells kind of like floor cleaner, but has sweet, clear, lemony flavor. Under the sour powder the gummer is a nice bright yellow. These aren’t bad, but I think I’ve had better lemon candies in both Japan and the US. 3/5

Grape is a permanent flavor and smells like very sweet grape cough syrup, but in the best way possible. It has a nice fake grape flavor that isn’t too powerful and is a nice dark lavender. Personally I like fake grape, especially when it’s subtle, but if you don’t like it, stay far far away from these. 5/5

Yuzu is a new flavor (released early September), and is probably limited edition. I should preface this with: I have never had an unprocessed yuzu. I’ve only had it in jelly desserts, so I don’t really know what the fruit tastes like off the tree. The yuzu gummies smell like bitter citrus peal and remind me of grape fruit. The color was slightly greener then the lemon. These were probably the most sour of all the flavors. The bitter green flavor was balanced nicely with sweetness. 4/5