Coffee Nut M&Ms and the Opening of the American Palate

The Tastes of Americans Have Matured
(No, Really)
The past few years have seen a real explosion in the number of new M&Ms flavors on offer: pretzel-filled M&Ms, crispy rice M&Ms, M&Ms flavored with peanut butter, mint, raspberries, almonds, dulce de leche and, if the internet is to be believed, even candy apple and pecan pie.  You might have thought that Mars would be at the point of creative exhaustion, but instead they've struck out in a pleasingly complex and adult direction with their new Coffee Nut M&Ms.

Who knows how they will fare in the kiddie market?  After all, children have their own laptops and tablets, so perhaps they have a taste for strong-brewed coffee too.  But it's hard not to think of these as aimed squarely at the adult professional.

This new coffee nut flavor comes to us by virtue of having won a consumer preference contest, beating out two other peanut-based candidates, Honey Nut and Chili Nut.  That either Coffee Nut or Chili Nut were viable candidates is a reflection of the growing sophistication of consumer preferences.  Two decades ago, neither flavor would likely have been possible.  Back then, mild, inoffensive milk chocolate dominated the American market, and pairing chocolate with assertive flavors like dark-roasted coffee or spicy chilis would have seemed too risky.  But two decades of Starbucks expansion has created a taste for the burnt and bitter notes of dark-roasted beans. Plus, the growth of boutique chocolates with high cacao content and intense flavor pairings have given large manufacturers the courage to experiment with high odds of success.

The flavorless shells (yes, I sucked on 'em just to be sure) come in three themed colors—call them "dark espresso", "just enough creamer", and "accident with the CoffeeMate."

Layers of Flavor and Texture
It's really striking how subtle and complicated the flavors and textures in these candies are.  Once the teeth puncture the thin shell of porcelained sugar, the palate is immediately saturated with the bittersweet and burnt notes of whole coffee beans.  I had to do a quick double check of the ingredient list to make sure there weren't actually real coffee grounds mixed in with the chocolate.  Apparently there aren't, only "natural coffee flavor," but you may find yourself doing a double take too.  Nominally, the chocolate may be milk chocolate (there is some cocoa butter listed) but the taste impression is of dark chocolate, probably because the dark roast bean flavor is itself so similar to that of bittersweet chocolate.  But we aren't done with the "dark" flavors yet.

It's easy to forget how literally big the peanut taste is in these M&Ms.  Seemingly taking up just as much space as the chocolate itself, it's amazing the chocolate-coffee flavor has the impact it does.

The taste of these mocha-spiked chocolates is so intense because they combine three roasted flavors: roasted coffee beans, fermented and roasted cocoa beans, and roasted peanuts, all of which reinforce one another.  Coffee purists might argue that hazelnuts would have been the better choice, paired as they often are with coffee, but peanuts are cheaper and, in the company of all these other dominating tastes, quite sufficient in their nuttiness to complete the flavor impression that Mars was trying for here.  All of those volatile oils and rare essences deep within the two beans and one nutty legume twirl around together, lingering on the tongue and in the nostrils long after the contents have been devoured.

Conclusions
A skeptical customer viewing these on the shelf might have expected this to be a compromise project, along the lines of General Foods International Coffees.  Meek chocolate mixed with a whimper of coffee and a weak tribute to nuttiness from a puny peanut.  One sample will prove such a doubter, even one with dulled tastebuds, wrong.  Highly recommended.

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