Booger Jelly Beans Are The World's Most Disgusting Jelly Bean
I'll never forget the smell.
It basically assaulted my nostrils-that earthy, pungent aroma of dirt. I held my breath, but it was too late–that foulness had seeped far enough up my nasal cavity and now lingered. Beads of sweat started forming along the elastic band of my hairnet. I licked my lip; it tasted bizarrely salty. "You got yourself into this mess," I reminded myself. "They warned you."
This much was true: A few weeks before, I had pitched that, while visiting my family on the West Coast, my coworker Chelsea and I take a trip to our hometown Willa Wonka factory, the Jelly Belly headquarters in Fairfield, CA. "I want to experience making some beans," I wrote to the company, which had dazzled me as a kid. "But not Tutti Frutti or Very Cherry. I want to do something more controversial."
If you're wondering WhyTF?!, I get it. Even Jelly Belly cautioned that they could make it bad-REALLY bad-if I was up for something darker. Making one of the company's gross-flavored beans was a task that even employees themselves dreaded. "The smell permeates the factory," Jana Perry, the company's communications manager, wrote to me. But I was ready. "Give me your worst," I told her.
And she did: "Okay, let's make Booger."
Apparently when scaled up at manufacturing level, Booger's gritty dirt flavor is so potent that the stench can bleed into other non-disgusting varieties being made nearby. I wasn't afraid. I wanted to do something with shock factor. And besides, how bad could it really be?
I'll tell you: When standing among a dozen jugs of thick, toxic-green syrup that reeks of earthy manure-casually referred to at JB headquarters as "edible snot"-it's pretty freakin' bad. The Jelly Belly Research and Development (R&D) team doesn't mess around: They've been making Booger since 2007, when the company first launched its BeanBoozled line (inspired perhaps by Harry Potter's Every Flavour Beans?). A cult obsession, each BeanBoozled party pack comes with an assortment of tasty flavors and-for the brave souls-identical repulsive ones, like barf (the most universally despised flavor), dead fish, and sour milk.
Booger took three months to pin down. Typically when developing a new flavor, R&D starts with the source to perfectly mimic its fragrance and flavor. "For spoiled milk, we put a carton in a warm closet and just let it sit," says Ambrose Lee, R&D manager and food chemist. And stinky socks? That flavor started by securing some soiled pairs of an employee's lacrosse-playing teenage sons-and letting them ferment over the weekend. Understandably, it's not like the team was going to sit around a room with a cup full of boogers, so they had to turn to memory.
BRINGING BOOGER TO LIFE
Think back to when you tasted your own boogers as a kid (don't even pretend-everybody's tried it). Aside from a grossly gummy texture, the only defining quality is their salty flavor. "Everyone has a slightly different experience with boogers, so it was a challenge," Lee says. "But we knew salt would need to be a key component." Now try to remember their smell. You can't-they don't exactly have one. But Jelly Belly's owner, Herm Rowland, Sr., insisted his did. "He worked a tractor for a long time to make ends meet when our candy business wasn't doing as well 40 years ago," says Jeff Brown, VP of Operations. "So in his mind, boogers had a real dirt-type taste." Not just any kind of dirt: adobe dirt, which has a particularly earthy, clay odor. "We needed it to taste like you were smackdown in a baseball field," Lee says.
"For spoiled milk, we put a carton in a warm closet and just let it sit," says Ambrose Lee, R&D manager.
The R&D team went to work, starting with a salty base and adding dirt essence for depth. But achieving a salty, bitter flavor from a sugary candy can be tough. "We've found a way to mask the amount of sweetness," Lee says, "so its savory side can stand out." Unlike when creating a tasty jelly bean like Watermelon or Cappuccino, JB employees have a different goal in mind with BeanBoozled: One bite shouldn't make anyone cry, but it should leave a lasting impression. Then came the really important decision: What color should Booger beans be? "When you see a color, your mind takes you to what you think that is," Brown says. Naturally, slime green seemed to fit the bill.
From start to finish, the production of one batch of Jelly Bellys takes 14 days. I stepped into the Booger bean-process about a week in, when the rank jelly centers had firmed up and were ready for their coating of snot syrup and sugar. To create the centers, the confectioners make a slurry of the edible snot, sugar, cornstarch, and water that heats up and gets deposited into hot molds before cooling in the "dry room"-whose warm temperature and low humidity are crucial to every bean's success.
MOMENT OF TRUTH
"Okay, you're up!" Brown shouted over the spinning metal vats, handing off a plastic jug of edible snot. Two hundred pounds of jelly bean centers tumbled in front of me, ready to get boogered and sugared. In order to evenly coat all the beans, I would need to stick my head through the vat, getting a full facial of the putrid stench. I took a deep breath and winced-the saccharine factory air was starting to make me nauseous-and began pouring. It felt like a mask of earthy muck had been slathered all over my face. Three jugs in, I badly needed air, but the smell surprisingly got easier to stomach (which explains why my liaison, Leonard, was laughing at my wimp ass-this stuff doesn't even phase him anymore).
"Two hundred pounds of Jelly Belly centers tumbled in front of me, ready to get boogered and sugared."
Just as I had started to recover, it was time to taste. I insisted we do this outside; a day of loud machinery and noxious smells had left me with a dull, throbbing headache. I bit off half a bean and braced myself. There was that dirt funk I was now so familiar with. Ugh, and then so much saltiness. I had to spit it out. Jana, the communications manager, snickered from the sidelines like a mad scientist. "We couldn't hope for a better compliment," she said.
Okay, so Jelly Belly won this round. Call me a coward-I'm cool with that. They managed to make a candy that makes me want to gag when I think about it. As we packed up, Jana had some last words: "The stench lingers," she said. "I'd advise you take a shower and wash your clothes immediately." She didn't have to tell me twice.
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