![]() ![]() In the middle of the pack was Trident Minty Sweet Twist(5.5) (“Too sweet, but a vast improvement on original Trident”).Īt the head of the category were Wrigley’s Doublemint (6.5), Orbit Sweet Mint (7.7), and Wrigley’s Spearmint, the overall champion at 8.4. Trident Original (3.6) had what Dufresne called “weird soapy notes.” Tasters felt Dentyne Ice (4.1) was overmentholated (“It’s like eating three candy canes at once”). The finalists in the mint category featured flagship offerings of major breath-freshening-industry players like Trident, Wrigley’s, Orbit (a Wrigley’s subsidiary), and Dentyne doing battle against one newcomer-the eco-friendly Glee Gum-and a selection from Trident’s huge new line of fruit-mint “twists.” The natural peppermint Glee Gum (average rating, 3 out of 10)was found to have disconcerting crunchiness and overly small pieces. Then we chewed for mouthfeel and bulk, flavor intensity, and the general pleasure of the squish-squish sensation going on between our teeth, grading each gum on a scale of 1 to 10. We even added between-round palate-cleansers (Saltines and Poland Spring) to keep our taste buds fresh. For the second round, we added two prominent tasters- Wylie Dufresne and Alex Stupak, WD-50’s chef-proprietor and pastry chef, respectively. In the first round, we waded through 132 kinds of gum, discarding the gross and the bland without hesitation, until twenty worthy finalists (see right) remained. ![]() Then we assembled a panel of enthusiastic, strong-jawed in-house volunteers and started a two-round testing system. ![]() We scoured specialty food boutiques and health-food stores and enlisted the giant candy companies (Wrigley, Cadbury Adams) to send us their full range. We decided to determine the best of each genre-mint, fruit, and bubblegum-by doing a comprehensive taste test. It seems that new kinds of chewing gum proliferate daily, with bodega cash registers now besieged by both the classic brands and tortured-sounding variations thereon (Trident, Trident White, Trident White Kiwi-Peppermint Hurricane Explosion, and so on). ![]()
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