Trader Joe's Organic Carrots Of Many Colors--Dehydrated Rainbow Carrots Snack

These are slices of dried, multicolored carrots. They taste like (wait for it)...carrots, though somewhat sweeter than typical carrots, presumably due to the natural sugars being more concentrated after dehydration. They're fairly crunchy. I wasn't thrilled with eating them straight out of the bag, but they worked well for dipping in hummus.

When I went to have a second serving a week or so after the first, I discovered that I had not resealed the bag all the way. Humidity had gotten in and the remaining carrot slices had gone limp and chewy. This was not an improvement. In fact, it spoiled the pleasure of eating them enough that I threw away the remainder. My bad.


Will I buy it again? 

No. It was fun to try once, but not something I need to repeat.

Trader Joe's Vacuum Dried Crunchy Red Dragon Fruit Chips

I've never eaten dragon fruit. It's a weird, scary-looking thing. Fortunately, the dried chips made from it are much less intimidating. They're still plenty strange, but at least they don't look, I dunno, lethal. Just looking at them, I would guess them to be some sort of red corn chips with maybe chia seeds--like a new variation of these chips. But nope--that would be way off.

The texture really is--as the name implies--like chips. The flavor is hard to describe, other than being obviously fruity. I found it to be sort of halfway between cherry and strawberry, but with an element unlike either of them. Not unpleasant at all. And, oddly, seeming familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.


Will I buy it again? 

No. But it's definitely worth trying once just for the new experience.

Trader Joe's Freeze Dried Red Seedless Grape Slices

These are a trip to eat. Sliced grapes--but they crunch when you bite them and disintegrate into grape-flavored powder. It kind of plays with your brain, because the texture is so foreign to what your whole life's experience tells you to expect from a grape.

They're extremely sweet. Which makes sense--because grapes are almost all water and sugar, so when you take away the water, guess what's left?


Will I buy it again? 

No. But I strongly recommend trying it once just for the new experience of it.

Trader Joe's Dried Sweetened Hibiscus Flowers

This is a new and unusual Trader Joe's product. I've never seen any kind of flowers for sale as a foodstuff, as far as I can recall.

You can see what they look like in the second photo above. Nina combined some of them with fresh raspberries and some of TJ's excellent Classic Lemon Bars. They look distinctly...alien.

The little bit I know about what hibiscus tastes like I learned from a few previous Trader Joe's products. Even after eating a few of these dried hibiscus flowers last night, I still can't call to mind what they taste like, in the same way I can with the raspberries or the lemon bar. But at least now I recognize it, and when I was chewing on the flowers, I thought, "Oh yeah, I do remember having that before."

They're overly sweetened, so my impression was simultaneously the memory of hibiscus and a rather overwhelming amount of sugar. It would have been a better and more interesting experience if they had cut that back by half.

They have a pleasantly chewy texture, similar to that of several other dried fruits.


Will I buy it again? 

No. I had been looking for this on the shelves since learning of its existence several weeks ago, but Nina spotted it before I did. I'm glad I tried it, and I'd probably finish off the bag if it were in my house, but I didn't like these dried flowers enough to get a second bag.

Trader Joe's Crunch Dried Honeycrisp Apples

My local Trader Joe's store had a big display of this new product right inside the front door--the first thing a customer would see. My knee-jerk reaction was, "Well, that's a slam-dunk winner." Honeycrisps are my favorite apples, and I like dried fruit generally. What's not to like?

Plenty, as it turned out. Nearly all of the contents of my bag were small fragments, not apple slices. And the drying is so extreme that it left those fragments hard and brittle.

There is a solid honeycrisp flavor, but the unhappy texture and size of the small, broken pieces far outweighed that niceness.


Will I buy it again? 

No. For dried apples, the New Zealand Sweet Apple Rings are the ones to get.

Trader Joe's Unsulfured Dried Pear Slices

I expected that I would love these, but they were no good. Too dry and tough, not flavorful enough.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Chile Spiced Mango

This is a seriously strange product. It's soft, fairly thin-sliced mango coated in what is basically a mixture of paprika, sugar, and powdered chiles.

Judging by reactions I've seen posted on Twitter, a lot of people fall in love with it instantly. That wasn't me. My first impression was that it was too hot, and the flavors didn't blend well. But as I ate more, it definitely grew on me, and by the end of the bag (spread out over five or six sittings), I was really digging it. It's hot enough that I don't want to eat more than about four pieces at a time, but that's plenty for a nice little snack, jam-packed with flavor and interestingness.


Will I buy it again? 

Yes. I think this is a winner--strange but good.

Trader Joe's Sweetened Dried Lemon Slices

Until I saw this on the new-products shelf, I had no idea that dried lemon slices were a thing. I guess it shouldn't have surprised me, though; why wouldn't they give basically the same treatment to lemons that they did to Mandarin oranges?

You're supposed to eat them rind and all--so I did. It's an interesting experience, but not especially in a good way. It's startling how sweet they've made them. The "interesting" part of tasting them is the contrast between what your life experience tells you to expect when biting into a lemon, and what you get here.

I thought they were way too sweet to enjoy. Nina, conversely, liked them a lot. (Long-time readers will note that this is a reversal of our traditional positions with respect to sweetness.) But we both agreed that it would be a much better product if TJ's cut back the added sugar by about half.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Soft & Juicy Mango

That's right, folks--this is the fifth day in a row of reviewing versions of Trader Joe's dried mango, and we're still not done yet!

This one does rightfully earn its claim of "soft." It's a lot easier to bite into than the Chokanan or the Just Mango. Juicy? That's a stretch--and what "juice" there is occurs only because mango juice has been added to the product (according to the list of ingredients). I find it baffling that one would take fruit, dry it by removing the juice, then add juice back into it.

Worse, though, is that they've also added sugar. The result is definitely sweeter than the others reviewed this week, but no better than the Supersweet Dried Carabao, which remains, in my mind, the gold standard of the genre. It also stands as irrefutable evidence that you don't need to add sugar (or juice) to make for good dried mango.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Just Mango Slices

Eating this reminded me of that famous scene of Charlie Chaplin eating his shoe. Don't buy it. If you want straight dried mango, the Chokanan variety reviewed yesterday is better--sweeter and less leathery tough. And the Carabao variety is even better than that.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Mango Chokanan Variety

I don't know from mango varieties. But what's in this package is exactly what I would expect from the generic descriptor, "dried mango." It's like the texture of most dried fruit--tough, chewy, leathery. And it tastes like moderately concentrated mango.


Will I buy it again? 

I doubt it. Though they were unconventional, I liked both the crispy-crunchy and the freeze-dried better than this.

Trader Joe's Freeze Dried Mango

Like the Crispy Crunchy Mango Chips reviewed yesterday, this bag was lost and forgotten in my cupboards until I unearthed it while moving recently. It's apparently even older, with a best-by date of September 2015. And again, I don't even know if it's still available. [EDIT: It is--I saw it on the shelves just a few days ago.] I decided to ignore the expiration date. After all, they're freeze-dried and then sealed up to make them last forever, right?

The texture could not be more different from the fried chips. They're sort of the texture of puffed-corn cereal, or maybe circus peanuts that have gotten dried out. You can actually see air spaces throughout, making them amazingly light.

The only ingredient is mango--no oil, no sweeteners, no preservatives. But I would have had a hard time identifying the pieces as mango if I didn't know it in advance. I have a hard time explaining why, but I think it's more the texture than the flavor. It's just hard to believe that anything that so closely resembles Styrofoam packing peanuts is actually fruit.

But they're really good! I kept switching back and forth between these and the fried mango chips, and I couldn't decide which I liked more. They're completely different, but equally successful--and equally odd--presentations of mango.


Will I buy it again? 

Yes.

Trader Joe's California Persimmons

Yuck. These are dried, tough, cardboard disks, sprayed with the lightest, vaguest hint of essence of persimmon. Or at least that's how they seem. A major disservice to persimmons.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Apple Raspberry Dried Fruit Bar

This is just like the apple-strawberry version, but with raspberry.

Because of that, I should like it better; raspberry beats strawberry as a general rule. But for reasons I can't articulate, I thought it wasn't quite as good. Close, though.


Will I buy it again? 

Yes. I'll be happy to keep both on hand.

Trader Joe's Apple Strawberry Dried Fruit Bar

This is like "fruit leather," but made only from dried fruit--nothing added except ascorbic acid (vitamin C). No extra sugar, gums, etc.

And it's delicious.


Will I buy it again? 

Definitely. This is going to become a staple that I keep around all the time for snacking.

Trader Joe's California Slab Apricots Blenheim Variety

I believe this is a new product for Trader Joe's, though I didn't find it on the new-products shelf. I think I would have noticed it before now if it had been around for long.

It took me a while to convince myself that this actually is a different product from an extremely similar one that I buy regularly--one of my Top Ten items--Blenheim Variety Extra Choice/Choice Apricots. Both packages are dried apricots, same weight, same variety, same price, both grown in California. They look alike.

I had never heard of "slab apricots," but later found this explanation: "All the old-timers know that slabs are the extra-ripe, fullest-of-sweetness kind of dried apricot. Usually hand-cut and when placed on a tray to dry, they lose their shape and "slab" out on the tray. Often compared to fruit leather, slabs are the sweetest, most intense flavor of our dried Blenheim apricot."

So, are these indeed the sweetest dried apricots, with the most intense flavor? No--at least not more than the others. I bought a bag of each, opened both, and alternated samples from the two bags. I could not tell any difference in size, shape, color, texture, flavor, or sweetness, even after repeating the experiment for five nights in a row. If you put a gun to my head and forced me to choose which bag carried which label, I'd still be reduced to a pure 50/50 guess.


Will I buy it again? 

Sure. The other kind is one of the rare TJ's items that is both a Top Ten and a staple in my kitchen. Since these are functionally identical, they merit the same status. I'll choose randomly between them for future purchases.


Bonus personal story

In 2014, I was one of six members of my family to go on a two-week guided tour of the British Isles. I brought along a bunch of snacks to eat on the motor coach between stops, including some of TJ's Blenheim variety dried apricots.

Shortly after we left Oxford, heading for Stratford Upon Avon, I started seeing signs for "Blenheim Palace" ahead. I recognized the name because I had wondered what "Blenheim" on the apricot package referred to, but had never bothered to look it up. Well, it turns out that Blenheim Palace is where Winston Churchill was born and raised, and this variety of apricot is named for that palace because they thrived on the grounds there.

So I had accidentally taken some Blenheim apricots back to the very place for which they were named!

Trader Joe's Supersweet Dried Carabao Mango

I'll make this simple: This is the best way to eat mangoes ever devised by mankind.

First, there's no fuss with cutting them.

Second, these really are sweeter than regular mangoes and have virtually none of that slightly bitter mango off-taste. And no, they have not been artificially sweetened. In fact, the ingredients list on the back is maybe the shortest I've ever seen: "Mangoes."

Third, they're sliced very thin, so you can eat a lot--or at least have the illusion of eating a lot--without a big calorie load.

Fourth, they're more "dried" than dried; that is, they're sort of partially dried. More like prunes than dried apricots.

I like these a lot--far more than I like eating fresh mangoes. It's one of Trader Joe's very best dried-fruit products--and I've had a lot of them.


Will I buy it again? 

I already have, and will again. I don't think they're quite Top Ten material, but the fact that I had to stop to consider conferring that status suggests that they're pretty damn good.

Trader Joe's Golden Berry Blend

This makes for pretty good snacking material--as long as I don't think about the list of ingredients. Because if I do, I'm reminded that of the four fruits represented here, all except the raisins have been sweetened with added sugar. This is a fact that is not disclosed or even hinted at on the front of the package.

I love golden raisins, but I think I'd rather have them alone than mixed in with a bunch of sugared-up other dried fruits.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's New Zealand Sweet Apple Rings

In contrast to the Freeze Dried Fuji Apple Slices, these are very much like the dried apple slices my mother used to make in our home food drier. I liked them a lot, though it's hard for me to say how much of that is pure nostalgia working on me.

For a contrary opinion, see that of my e-friend Susan, in her no-longer-daily TJ's blog: http://traderjoes365.blogspot.com/2016/03/new-zealand-sweet-apple-rings.html

My main complaint is that the core was cut out with such small margins that the seed capsules were often left in place, creating unpleasant nuggets of toughness. I had to either nibble around these, or pull them out before popping a slice into my mouth. I'm hoping that was an idiosyncrasy of this particular batch, and not characteristic of the product generally.


Will I buy it again? 

Definitely.

Trader Joe's Crispy Crunchy Mixed Fruit

This is excellent. Pleasant textures. Vivid and compatible flavors--I liked all of the four about equally, so I didn't care which I picked up next and felt no urge to select one over another. Nicely sized pieces with relatively few broken, tiny bits. There is apparently a small amount of sugar added, and I've previously said that I don't want sugar in my dried fruit, but it wasn't prominent enough to bother me here.

One oddity: The package warns not to eat the included desiccant packet. I didn't notice that warning until Nina and I had noshed our way through the whole bag. So either I had picked the odd package with no desiccant, or one of us ate it without noticing. The latter seems unlikely. The only reason I mention it is that this bag had sat in my cupboard so long without being consumed that we were a full eight months past its expiration date when we finally tore into it. (It had become buried under some other stuff and forgotten.) And yet the contents remained in perfect texture, even without the desiccant it was supposed to have. It kind of makes me wonder why they bother with including it.

I don't know why they make the package with a resealable opening, cuz it's never going to be closed again after it's opened. They even specifically assert that the number of servings included is "1." So it's, like, illegal not to eat the whole bag at once.


Will I buy it again? 

Definitely. This is a superior late-night snack.