After Eight Orange and Mint

Stop the presses! The “let’s add orange to something and call it limited edition” gimmick strikes again. This time it’s After Eight, which have become After Eight Orange (how do they do it?)

Exciting, huh? I haven’t slept for weeks! But that may have something to do with political chaos, a climate emergency and reading incredibly unfunny posts on Twitter until four o’clock in the morning.

My eyes are redder than the burning Australian cities; my brain shrivelled like a detached and browning autumnal leaf.

But limited edition is terrifically exciting, so who could possibly resist a £2 box of exclusivity to boost the sales of a major confectionery manufacturer?

Unsurprisingly, the astonishingly different product looked exactly the same as normal After Eights – right down to the half of the packet that congealed onto the paper casings. The individual chocolates were their usual small, square size with a thin spread of bumpy dark chocolate encasing a strip of white stickiness (don’t even think it). Not a flicker of orange in sight.

If the Titanic had been made out of After Eights it really would have been unsinkable. It could have sailed through Antarctica without picking up even a pinprick of damage. In fact, it would have lasted almost as long as a single plastic bag. GTA Titanic.

The apparently baseless publicity stunt did, however, eventually produce some tangible results in the taste. A succulent flavour of orange was distinctive alongside the traditional sharp mint, with both working in precise harmony to create a unique and refreshing blend.

Once the paper wrapping had been peeled and pecked away each chocolate was undeniably enjoyable to eat, creating a simple yet unexpectedly luxurious experience.

A box full of these exclusivities contained twenty four bundles of brown gooiness, which, although plenty, seems like a suspiciously cynical cost saving exercise: what, exactly, was wrong with thirty pieces of stickiness?

Overall, my review of Nestle’s orange After Eight is that they are ingeniously made – if massively boring – chocolates that do actually justify a cheeky “limited edition” badge.

Without a doubt never to be seen again: 4* out of 5.

Review by JAMES LEWIS
Wanderer, wonderer and editor of the Chocolate Dissection blog (which will ideally melt hearts rather than brains). Reliable with sarcasm, less so with a scalpel. Twitter: @IdeasJimbound


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