Haribo Tangfastics: Minis

Product name: Haribo Tangfastics: Minis
Calories: 75 per 22g bag 

This evening’s review is of another sweet treat that Father Christmas brought me – Haribo Tangfastics: Minis (the ‘mini’ part seemed to relate to the size of the packet rather than the sweets inside!).

Despite not being chocolate, I am a fan of Haribo, although I have a love-hate relationship with tangy sweets. I’m not really keen on the sharpness involved but, at the same time, I find it’s worth pushing through this by sucking the sugary coating off in order to get to the good stuff.

These Tangfastics (I love this play on the word ‘fantastic’, by the way!) contained no artificial colours and were represented by orange packaging. The front of the wrapper contained cartoon images of the Haribo bear and other characters that, I assumed, would be found inside. No country of origin was stated but the only contact details provided were for the UK and Ireland.

The ‘sour mix’ was described as ‘fizzy fruit flavour’ and ‘sweet foam gums’ and I was surprised at just how many fruit and plant concentrates they contained (*deep breath*: apple, blackcurrant, carrot, elderberry, grape, kiwi, lemon, mango, nettle, hibiscus, orange, passion fruit and spinach!).

The two obvious shapes present in the pack were cherries and the famous cola bottles. However, partly due to the sugar coating, I struggled to work out what the other two were supposed to be. I thought one was a frog head but, looking at the wrapper, I wondered if this was supposed to be the crocodile. The other, I decided, was a spoon, so that’s what I’ll refer to it as!

All of the shapes were colourful and the ones with foam backings had really white and fresh-looking bases. Due to the stiff, gummy nature of the sweets, I only bothered cutting one of them open, but I was pleased to see a clean jelly appearance inside, despite the rough outer texture.

The Tangfastics didn’t have an obvious scent but it was possible to smell the sugar up-close. This sugar did have a sharpness, when tasted, but this didn’t last too long, and I found that sucking it off left a flavourful, smooth sweet in the mouth.

The spoon sweet had an apple flavour which I found to be fruity and quite juicy. Like all of the sweets in the bag, it was a bit too chewy for my liking as it was hard work to get to the end of it!

The crocodiles had foam backings which provided both a softer taste and texture. In fact, texturally, they were a bit like chewier marshmallows. The red crocodile had a nice berry flavour whilst the yellow one appeared to be lemon but, thankfully for me, it wasn’t too citrusy. As for the purple sweet, this seemed to have a blackcurrant flavour – it had a deeper fruity taste which was quite like Maynards Wine Gums.

The cola bottles tasted as you’d expect cola-flavoured sweets to taste! I love coke (I drink Pepsi Max all day long) and I do quite like it when this taste is transferred to edible items. However, whilst Haribo did a good job of recreating the flavour here, I do prefer their standard cola bottles to these tangy ones.

As for the cherry sweets, these were my favourite of this selection, and they had an instantly recognisable flavour.

I’m still not a massive fan of sour sweets, and I’d always opt for plain ones when given the choice, but these Tangfastics were a lot more flavourful (particularly beneath the tang) than I remembered, and there were some good tastes there.  

Appearance: 7.5/10
Aroma: 6.5/10
Taste: 7/10
Texture: 7/10
Overall score: 7/10