Welcome to my... gum journal? Yeah!!
I'll talk here about various varieties of gum I've chewed wahoo!!
Throughout my relatively short amount of time spent within the confines of this mortal plane, I've experienced the tastes and textures of many types of gum. Starting today, I'd like to start sharing these experiences with the world wide web! Taking inspiration from The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green (which as my memory tells me is a really very good book), I will be rating each of these gum variants out of a total 5 stars. A little blurb of my remembered experience with it shall also be added, because, as you may or may not know, I suffer from an inability to shut up when given the opportunity to speak. So, with that all being said, let the ratings begin!
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
Written 10/18/23
This gum majorly fucking blows. Ok, maybe not majorly fucking blows, but it's still not very good. The flavoring is immediately intensely artificial in an offputting way. Chewable, sure. Gets flavorless quickly, and then somehow furtherly flavorless in a mean way. The sticks are very small, there is no possibility for bubble blowing lest you shove 2 more sticks into your mouth, which is actually normal for many gums nowadays though I wish it were not. Shame, shame. TL;DR: there are better gums out there. If you really like artificial strawberry flavoring, though, you might really like this gum for 10 minutes, however after the 10 minutes you will taste what a YMCA pool smells like. (Not the chlorine, something else. Something sharp and purely chemical. Which makes a lot of sense now that I think about it again.)
Rating: ★★★★☆
Written 2/18/23
Starting off with probably the first gum I ever encountered in my life. Solid gum. Good flavoring. Aftertaste: little to none; from what I remember this gum has good flavor retention. Chewability: very, although if I rememeber correctly, the gum becomes almost stringy after a while? Probably from the saliva. Anywho, this is a gum that will not fuck you over. The fruity flavoring is decently strong and I appreciate it for what it is. From experience, you can chew this past its expiration date (if it's unopened) and you won't die. Source: I am still alive. I will say though, the sticks are rather small. Dense compared to its competitors (unless they've changed that) which does make it unique, however it also does force the initial chew to utilize more force than is otherwise necessary. Currently leaving the rating at 4 stars because I haven't had it in a while and maybe something has changed about it that I'm not aware of.
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Written 3/11/24
Please note that I have never once in my life had a strawberry daiquiri, and quite frankly I do not even know how to pronounce the word. Anywho — the initial flavor of this gum is punchy and fruity, though of course expectedly artificial. While the case argues this gum has a "long lasting flavor", from experience I know that this is a lie. False advertising. All the flavoring fucks off into oblivion after maybe 5 minutes and leaves behind a semibitter base. Notable pro of this gum: does not turn into mush while being chewed. This is a low bar, but I might as well mention it. Also, of course, this gum is shaped like a cube. It's a cube, there's 40 of them, they come in a little case, and god I wish I felt nothing for this brand of gum but unfortunately I have vivid memories of accidentally swallowing the raspberry flavor on multiple occasions. Each pack costs nearly $5, btw. NOT worth. Mid ass gum, 2.5 stars but I don't know how to do half stars. I'm pretty sure this doesn't even taste like a strawberry daiquiri.
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Written 3/12/23
The first thing you should know about this particular gum is that it comes in a sort of pellet form. Orbit gum pellets are almost exactly the shape which many wooden pellets are in, minus the fact that these pellets are white with blue flecks and easily chewable and also a gum instead of wood. There's a hard shell on the outside, but it's like an m&m candy type of hard shell; the normal kind, yeah? Personally, I think this gum is kind of... small. Size doesn't matter, sure, whatever, but with me, it kind of has to. Uh, in terms of gum, that is — oh, and clothes, but that's a different thing. My point is, since there's only 40 pellets per case (yeah, it actually comes in a case! Which makes it kind of hard to carry around, but it's a nice novelty item, I suppose), that's kind of a major detriment. You're telling me for the space this container takes up, I'm not feeling like I get as much gum as I want from each pellet? I basically only get 20 per case, then, which is about as many as the sticks-of-gum packs come in! It's just kind of annoying. Anyways, this is a very chewable gum with a bold and decently lasting pepperminty flavor (initially very strong, but does fade considerably after some time) that I, a big flavor boy™, doth mucheth appreciateth. This is a good gum, but the size, the case, the fact that the flavor doesn't last as long as I'd like it to, and the stubborn nursing of corporate-level capitalistic tendencies does hold it back. If I knew how to do half stars, I'd give this a 3.5. It's closer to a 3, though, so I'll just keep it there.