This Sucre de Rouen is a difficult candy to review for oh so many reasons.

• It’s so petite.
• It’s made in France so the packaging is all in French.
• It looks so general; old school. Like what I would find in an old candy dish at an estate sale
• Honestly? Not flash enough for me to ever think about buying.

See what I mean? Would you ever grab these off the shelf if you didn’t know what they were and hadn’t tried them before? Don’t lie. Of course you wouldn’t.

The name Sucre de Rouen literally means Rouen Sugar, and Rouen is a town…so unless you are French or a big fan of France geography, I’m just not sure these will get on anyone’s radar. Plus, the entire package is small, like think of a pack of Mentos then shrink it down by 10x. These are 20g, which equates to less than 3/4 of an oz. You know those Smartees you throw away at Halloween? It’s just slightly bigger than that. And I’m not going to lie to you, I would have thrown this out before trying them, if Google hadn’t intervened.

But thanks to the information superhighway and it’s effective search capabilities, I was able to find a French site – which I crudely had translated to English. (Again, thank you Google) – that explains what these are. And they sound interesting as hell:

“The sugar apple: Norman confectionery since the sixteenth century. Originally from the town of Rouen apple sugar is boiled sugar candy flavored with apple essence and accompanied by lemon juice. Cast as a stick, apple sugar Rouen is packed in a paper case representing famous historical monuments of the city of Rouen.”

I loves me some Apple candy. Green Apple Jolly Ranchers come to mind, and these candy apple lollipops, and I never would have guessed – like EVER – if I was left on my own with this candy package, that these were apple flavored. Again, how did people live before Al Gore invented the internet?

Safe to say I was terribly intrigued before opening the package. Would it be multiple pieces? Is it like caramel, or chewy? Would the apple be a really intense flavor? These have been around literally 100’s of years, there must be a reason for this!

As I tear into it — and I literally had to tear into it because the paper was super tight, stuck to the candy and didn’t come off easily. I see it is one piece, and I could also tell it was going to be rather hard. I started in with a suck.

Annnddd… blah. Totally disappointing. I had to suck for awhile before any flavor arrives. The apple is almost non-existent – more lemon than apple (which according to the site, is indeed an integral ingredient) – but dutifully unsuckable since the flavor is barely there. It’s like a fruity sweet piece of rock candy. So I bit into it and then it becomes slightly chewy as pure sugar will do when it melts with saliva, getting stuck in teeth and the like.

And that’s it. This whole entire review has such a great preamble and then the candy is bad, almost unworthy of review.

Boo.

Let’s get this over with already. Review, done.

(This is another candy from workmate Lindsay – thank you Lindsay! – who, like me, traveled to Europe this summer. Funnily, she procured more sweets than I did. Look, I had no room in my suitcase yo!)