Mmm, Medicinal Candy

Lookie what I found that is fun and probably useless: candy herbs! I was in the candy aisle looking for a fix and found them in the lozenge section in an Esselunga (Italian grocery chain). The bag shows 6 flavors, but after opening it I found all kinds of surprises:

• wheat
• licorice
• anise
• "milk mint" (latte menta)
• regular mint
• chamomile 
• blueberry
• tamarind 
• gentian
• cinnamon 
• juniper
• bergamot (bergamotto - Italian bitter orange) 
• lemon sage
• and specialty flavor wrapped in a black wrapper with gold lettering reading "Rababarone, Mera e Longhi" (Rhubarb, simple and long)

I was honestly suprised at the selection. There were all kinds of herbs included that I have never even heard of with medicinal histories that stretched way past our American usage of herbs. I cannot say that these 1x1 inch drops can be enough to "heal" someone, but according to the packaging, they are high-quality candies crafted from ancient herbal recipes.

I have only tried a few, but so far my favorite was tamadrin. It tasted exactly like the sweetened Mexican drink and I swear I felt even a bit of texture to it. Others reminded me of those old-fashioned, hard-candies that kind of taste like lightly sweetened nothingness. Then 10 miles from nothingness was Gentian, a bitters that tasted like a rotten lemon rind.

Either way I am excited. Candy that can't hurt me -- yay!