Last night at the Whole Foods Market in Providence I spotted a display of cutely packaged Jo’s  Peanut Butter Crunch candies at the register. In my bag the twosome went along with my sushi dinner and Eden Soy soy milk.

The chocolate treat was my mid-morning snack. I’ve heard good things about Jo’s candy but found the overall flavor of the peanut butter lacking. The chocolate quality was good, smooth and melty, but again, was a weak tasting milk chocolate. Overall it was ok, but really lacked much flavor.

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Italian candy maker Pastiglie Leone makes a line of lozenges in a variety of flavors, including assenzio, or absinthe. The candies have a texture similar to Altoids, but are about half the size of the famous mints.

I’ve sampled several other flavors in this line, including lemon and cinnamon and the absinthe flavor is my least favorite — it’s simply too bitter. There is an anise flavor, but the range of bitter flavors overpowers any subtle sweetness. I couldn’t even finish one small candy.

The flavor is awful, but the packaging is delightful. I’m keeping an unopened box on my desk for sheer aesthetics. I truly am a sucker attractive packaging.

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I love the taste of coconut, especially drenched in chocolate, but ever since I read Steve Almond’s Candy Freak I’ve had second thoughts. The author describes coconut in Almond Joy/Mounds as though, “I feels as if I’m chewing on a sweetened cuticle.”

Yeah, that’s pretty spot-on.

But when I saw the Choxie dark chocolate coconut truffle bar I knew I needed to taste. The bar is covered in a thin layer of dark chocolate while the inside is a mix of white chocolate, coconut and toasted almonds.

Full disclosure – i don’t like white chocolate, but the taste of the coconut and the crunch of the nuts was perfectly pleasing. On the downside the Choxie chocolate is mediocre quality at best and the filling makes this a super sweet candy bar. One square is all I could eat – normally I can eat whole chocolate bars in one sitting.

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I stopped in Paper Source to pick up more blank cards and spotted the bear buble gum from Mineco at the register. It’s adorable. so i picked up a package ($1.50 for 4 pieces of gum).

I’ve tried out the grape. Perfect ‘fake’ grape flavor, just the way I like it. Though while it gets a perfect 10 in presentation, it got stale and lost all flavor in about ten minutes. Oh well, it can’t be pretty and taste good, too.

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These are currently my favorite chocolate bars — the Ritter Sport whole hazelnut bars, either in milk or dark chocolate. And they are often on sale at Target!

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