Food: Tic Tac 'Mint Rush'

Food Rating: 6
Value for Money: 6
Overall: 6

In A Nutshell

There I was waltzing through Tesco this week, when I saw something new on the shelf that caught my eye. Well, it said they were new. You never really know these days do you? Needless to say, my trained sweet eyes caught sight of an unfamiliar packet of Tic Tacs, making them a compulsory purchase a few minutes later.

We all know that on the imaginary chart for daily sweets, Tic Tacs are acceptable as part of your "5 a-day". What with something like 2 measly calories per Tic Tac, you can pop these like, ummm, candy all day and not feel too much like you're overdoing the sugar intake. Unless that is you consume the whole packet in a day, whereabouts you've just guzzled about 250 calories, which is roughly what's in your average mars bar. Ooops.

So, what do we have in this packet? Is it even a packet? Should it be a tub? A container? Whatever, it's a packet as far as I'm concerned. Inside there are two flavours of mints: there's the dark blue for strong, and the light blue for 'not strong'. I'd call the light blues much like your spearmints. It's soothing. It's seductive. Oh, and it's light and harmless. Much like a tea bag. The dark blue is the opposite. It's one of those herbal tea bags. Well, not literally, but it's a different kettle of fish to the light blue. It's strong, like those triple X mints you see on the shelves.

With stronger and not very strong mints in one packet, you'd think you could do a nice handful of Tic Tacs in the hand and throw them in your mouth with confidence, right? Sadly, the combination doesn't work for me. I'm not sure what it is in my mouth, but it feels like someone's deposit of sick from a late night out. Ugh.

What I liked

You have to admit they look pretty. I'm reminded of an old bubble bath product I used to have when really young that was a shade or two of blue. The combination of dark and light blue is delightful to see in this packet. Do I think people will be tempted in purely on the colours? Well, I was!

There are mints, and you can't have enough flavours of mints on the shelf can you? Even better, there's two variations of mints in one packet. That's gotta be good value? It is if you like at least one of them I guess.

These were on special offer, because they were new I would assume, at about 85p for 100 Tic Tacs, compared to the usual ~ £1.25 for existing same sized Tic Tacs. This tempted me in, I admit it.

What I Didn't Like

The combination doesn't work. At least not for me. It should. There should be some sort of neutralising effect for strong versus not so strong mints but it ends up being a right old mess.

Huh?

One of the ingredients is apple extract! What's that all about?

And Finally

They look beautiful and likely to tempt in even the most unwilling of sweet enthusiasts, but unless you are going to be strange and selectively eat the dark and light blue mints separately, or (shudder) share your Tic Tacs with someone, it's best not to guzzle these together unless you really need to wake up your senses in the morning.