Bertie Bott’s Bonanza

April 22 is National Jelly Bean Day. Instead of celebrating by brainstorming ways to use or re-create the flavors of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans, Senior Contributing Editor Eric Scull and I decided to rank the tastiness and taste accuracy of those jelly beans. We had previously collaborated together for the Butterbeer Bonanza, and we figured, how else should seasoned Harry Potter fans spend the holiday?

By trying every single Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Jelly Beans, obviously. It’s research.

Senior Contributing Editor Eric Scull

The Rules

• All 20 beans must be taste-tested.
• Each bean must be chewed for a minimum of 5 seconds.
• Especially awful beans are allowed to be spit out after those 5 seconds.
• We would use a “Bean Boozled” Mystery Bean Dispenser to determine which bean to taste.
• We must rank the tastiness of each bean on a scale of 1-10.
• We must rank the taste accuracy of each bean on a scale of 1-10.
• A winner and loser must be chosen.

Why utilize the Mystery Bean Dispenser? Because it’s magical, obviously. But seriously, we decided that, instead of spilling the beans out on the table and trying our hardest to pick at random, relying on a dispenser would be much more fun.

Bean Boozled Mystery Bean Dispenser

We filled the Dispenser with three boxes of Bertie Bott’s and then pumped it twice to reveal one or two jelly beans at a time. Thus, we would have an element of surprise when attempting to figure out which jelly bean we would be tasting. (It was harder than anticipated to, say, differentiate between Vomit and Tutti-Frutti.)

The Results

Candy Floss, also known as cotton candy to us Americans, won with 20 points. 10 points for tastiness and 10 points for taste accuracy.

Blueberry and Marshmallow tied for the worst, with 4 points. 3 points for tastiness and 1 point for taste accuracy.

Both Vomit and Black Pepper won 10 points for taste accuracy.

Both Vomit and Rotten Egg won 1 point for tastiness, for obvious reasons.

A common theme that kept cropping up was that Jelly Belly definitely had magic up its sleeves when creating the super awful-flavored jelly beans. However, Jelly Belly, like other candy companies, missed the mark with the fruitier flavors.

Creative Staff Team Member Jasmine Lee (traumatized from a jelly bean)

Final Lineup

Were we terribly off in any of our rankings? What’s your favorite Every Flavor Bean? What’s your least favorite Every Flavor Bean? Is there a flavor you wish existed that doesn’t already? Shout out in the comments below and make sure to eat as many jelly beans as possible today!