As the gourmet portion of the candy aisle continues to expand, more and more candy companies seek to gain a foothold in the high-end chocolate market. Hershey, known for its generic waxy chocolate Hershey Bar for many years, came out with more expensive high-cacao content chocolate a few years back. The latest addition comes from M&Ms: Four different varieties of M&Ms "Premiums," with artsy soft (not crunchy) candy shells and different flavors: Mocha, Triple Chocolate, Raspberry Almond and Mint Chocolate. They're about three times as expensive as regular M&Ms; for the price of a 6 oz. package of Premiums, you could get one of the big bags of Plain or Peanut M&Ms.
So, how do they taste? Well, I bought a package of the Mint Chocolate ones, which has a white chocolate-mint center surrounded by dark chocolate, with a soft metallic green shell. The inner plastic wrapper is an ingenious piece of work, with a resealable flap at the top that lifts up and then sticks back to the plastic when closed. The M&Ms themselves are very good, and are smoother and richer than regular M&Ms.
A true chocolate snob would look down his nose at them because they contain white chocolate, which is really not even chocolate at all. I am not a chocolate snob, however. These are tasty, if somewhat pricey at $3.67 for a 6 oz. package.
