I love jelly beans, they are my favorite type of candy. Any flavor, anytime; if you’ve got a bean I’m down. So, why did I do this to myself?
For those of you that don’t know, Jelly Belly’s “Bean-Boozled” is a set of jellybeans where the beans come in pairs. They look exactly the same, but one bean is a normal, commonly available flavor like lime while its twin is something weird and super-nasty, like boogers.
Photo by Kiara Halls
I, for some reason, thought it would be a good idea to sit down and try them. Not all of them, no—just the gross ones. I have no idea what I was hoping to achieve, but here they are, in order from kind-of-alright to absolutely disgusting: all ten of Jelly Belly’s Bean-Boozled jelly beans. Here’s hoping you can find some joy in my pain.
10. Toothpaste
Photo by Kiara Halls
Out of all the jellies, this one was definitely the most palatable. After trying all the other beans multiple times to peg their tastes, this one was like a light at the end of the tunnel since it was the only one that didn’t make me feel like puking out my insides once I’d swallowed it.
The bean tasted exactly like Aquafresh. When I say exactly, I mean it tasted exactly like it. It was uncanny. To that end, I could see using this bean as a mint in a crisis. But then again, if I’m relying on jelly beans to stay minty-fresh, I clearly have larger problems.
9. Stinky Socks
Photo by Kiara Halls
This one confused me a little. How does one discover the taste of stinky socks, let alone stuff it into a jellybean? Do you just make it taste how the socks smell? Is that even possible?
This bean answers none of those questions. It smelled awful—just like stinky socks, even—but it didn’t really have a taste, aside from a vaguely fruity undertone. But, who knows, maybe my stinky socks were vaguely fruity this whole time, and I just wasn’t daring enough to taste them and see.
8. Lawn Clippings
Photo by Kiara Halls
This bean tastes like grass. Really musty grass. It’s a little hard to describe, actually. I mean, it tastes like musty grass, but it’s also a little fruity and the flavors almost cancel each other out, but that mustiness is always there. It hit me especially hard at the end. I was actually fine until I swallowed it, at which point I wanted to gag.
7. Baby Wipes
Photo by Kiara Halls
For this one, I really just wanted to ask why. Why baby wipes? I mean, I understand really gross flavors like dog food or barf, but why baby wipes? They’re not especially disgusting until they’re dirty.
Is it the smell? It must be, because these beans smelled exactly like baby wipes, and it not appetizing. In terms of taste, they tasted like what you would get if you coated a piece of celery in cinnamon-flavored gum. And, well, I hate celery, and I hate cinnamon-flavored gum, so I hate this bean.
6. Skunk Spray
Photo by Kiara Halls
After seeing, and smelling, this flavor, I decided that the people at Jelly Belly just wanted to cause me as much pain and distress as possible. But, after actually tasting this one, I feel like they could have done worse. It’s terrible, don’t get me wrong—it tastes like super-salty black licorice—but for a flavor called “skunk spray,” it wasn’t as gross as it could have been. But it was still really, really nasty.
5. Barf
Photo by Kiara Halls
Out of all the beans, I dreaded eating this one the most. When I first opened this can of horrors, there was an especially disgusting scent coming from it.
After picking up this bean, I realized that it was the source. Out of all the one hundred-odd beans, it was this flavor’s stench that rose to the top. I cried a little. I cried even more after eating it. It was as salty as the skunk spray bean, but it was also really sour. I had to reevaluate my life choices after eating this one.
4. Booger
Photo by Kiara Halls
This one actually looked as bad as it tasted and, believe it or not, it tasted more vomit-y than the barf one. The basic taste of this bean is mucus. Imagine what the dried up, crusty, yellowed snot around your five year-old cousin’s nose tastes like and you have this bean. Ew. I know.
3. Moldy Cheese
Photo by Kiara Halls
This bean just tastes old. Like, old-gummy-bear-found-in-the-sofa-cushions old. I don’t know how they packed so much age into a jelly bean, but they did it. By God, did they do it. And, on top of that, it doesn’t taste like cheese at all. Instead, it tastes a lot like…celery. How does that happen?
2. Rotten Egg
Photo by Kiara Halls
The smell one this one was unbearable—almost as bad as the barf bean—and the color didn’t exactly inspire any confidence, either.
As soon as I put it in my mouth I could taste it. It was so awful. I almost couldn’t bring myself to chew the thing. But I did. And I regretted it immediately. The complete taste of this bean is a lot like greasy eggs and…celery.
At this point I started to think that my mouth couldn’t handle especially bad flavors and so it just bounced back to the worst taste it already knew: celery. But even that doesn’t help me when I’m choking on rotten egg-flavored beans.
1. Canned Dog Food
Photo by Kiara Halls
I honestly wasn’t expecting this one to be that bad, so I was genuinely shocked when it turned out to be the worst of the bunch. Worse than barf, worse than moldy cheese, and waaaay worse than stinky socks. I couldn’t believe it. It was like eating peanut butter mixed with mud, and it was every bit as pasty, too.
And, added bonus, the taste lingers forever. A good four hours after I’d eaten this thing I was still gagging on the taste in my mouth, and it’s not like I wasn’t trying to get rid of it—I must have downed, like, eight bottles of water trying to get rid of it, but it would not leave. Pain. There was only unending pain.
I grabbed some Tabasco sauce, hoping that heat would drown out the flavor. But wait…
Photo by Kiara Halls
It’s beans.
Flustered, I pour myself a drink, a Strawberry Daiquiri, hoping to flush the taste of not only the dog food jellybean, but the spicy, carrot-y flavor of the “Tabasco sauce.” But, alas:
Photo by Kiara Halls
This too…is beans. Bland, musty, vaguely strawberry-flavored beans.
My torment is never-ending.