I feel like this product came together based on all of the other successful sugary combinations of the past. Chocolate and peanut butter? Reese’s. Marshmallows and granulated sugar? Those adorable little Peeps. Cookies and pizza? A COOKIZZA. Some quick Googling uncovers that this product first came out in 2006, but I couldn’t find a current product page on Hershey’s website, so I’m going to assume it’s been discontinued.
At first thought, combining chocolate and chewing gum seems like a brilliant idea. The long-lasting gum base plus the cocoa flavor (with none of the extra calories/guilt that come with eating a regular chocolate bar), how can you lose?
You start your journey just breaking up the brown polymer clay-like cube in your mouth. I’m accustomed to the little pieces of sugar-free Orbits, Tridents, Eclipses of the world, most commonly used for breath freshening, so this was a much different gum experience. I admit I’m kind of a gum addict – when I’m not eating something, I’m usually chomping on a piece of gum. Thankfully, I haven’t stuck any behind my ear for safekeeping a la Violet Beauregard, but I’m currently working on my blueberry transformation. I think my record is between 10-12 hours for one piece (though 8 of that may have been sleeping).
The flavor reminds me a lot of a brown, er…chocolate flavored Tootsie Roll Pop (as also mentioned in another review). It’s enough flavor to get that ~chocolate essence~ but not enough to actually feel like you’re eating legit chocolate. The resulting gum portion was quite rubbery and snappy (as Bubble Yum is). When I took it out of my mouth and rolled it into a ball, I feel like I could have used it as a brown little bouncy ball.
If you want to blow any sort of bubbles, you’re gonna have to eat a whole pieces, instead of the half-piece I bit off for sampling. Even then, is a brown gum bubble really that appealing (see photo below, the resulting bubble carefully placed on a dish as if it were an art piece). I’m getting a total Rover vibe from the bubble (any fans of The Prisoner here?), only instead of emerging from the sea, he emerges from a sewage treatment plant. I’d make a joke about Number 2, but that’d be too easy.
Final thoughts: it’s a decent product – I admit I ate two more pieces following the initial review, but that was more to feed my terrible gum addiction than actually craving the product.
Apparently, Bubbly Yum/Hershey’s took this product a step further and created “Bubble Yum, Hershey’s Genuine Chocolate Flavored Lip Balm”. I’m glad they included the disclaimer, “Goes on your lips, not in your mouth!”
Buy Bubble Yum Chocolate on Amazon!
Tags: Candy, Chocolate, Grocery Outlet, Gum, Hershey's
