Just One Food - Magnum Cherry Blossoms

I wasn't planning to write about this new seasonal Magnum ice cream flavour.....but was appalled by the reviews I read giving it the thumbs up and saying that the ice cream is not that sweet.

Well, I just had to set the record straight....and put in my two cents' worth.  So, here's what I thought of new Magnum Cherry Blossoms...according to my taste buds lah.  The pretty pink packaging is the first thing that draws you in.

When you open the packaging, the pretty-in-pink ice cream is certainly instagram-worthy....and will elicit people to buy it just because of its looks.  Plenty of photos will flood Facebook and Instagram, I'm sure.

Taking a first bite of the ice cream, I was blown away (not in a good way) at just how sweet the whole thing was. The sweetness level was off the charts.  Those who think that this ice cream is not too sweet (or only a little sweet) must have a very sweet tooth! O_o  Either that or their sweetness tolerance level is at an advanced level while I'm still at beginner's level...haha! ;D  P/S: Sorry for the rather melted ice cream look in the photos as I left it in my fridge's chiller instead of the freezer since I can't take things that are too cold as they'll give me a 'brain freeze'! ;)

So, I tried to ascertain where the sweetness came from...whether its from the chocolate coating or the ice cream itself.  I tore off a small piece of the crunchy pink-coated Belgian white chocolate shell, studded with dried cherry fruit bits, and ate that on its own.  It was beyond sweet.  It can send you straight into a diabetic coma! ;P

Next, I had another bite of the vanilla ice cream inside, with swirls of reddish/pinkish cherry sauce, separately.  It was still sweet but at least not as exceedingly sweet as the chocolate shell.  I don't usually indulge in ice cream but decided to try after I got swayed with words of 'a little sour', 'a little refreshing' and 'not so sweet'.  Ooo, I'm drawn to things a little sour.  But there was nothing sour, nothing refreshing about it at all...just a whole lot of sweet!  If there was any hint of sourness, it was very negligible (as I could hardly taste it) as it was overwhelmed by the over the top sweetness of the whole thing.

But there was something else I did taste...and it was the weird taste of sakura (or cherry blossoms) flavour. It's certainly an acquired taste, something that's a little bit complicated to explain but it tasted medicinal to me (like cough mixture!).  Maybe that's what a sakura flower (or cherry blossom) tastes like...I wouldn't know coz I've never chewed on one before...lol!  You'll experience the scent (and taste) of a flower...a cherry blossom flower (to be exact), not to be confused with cherry-flavours.  I had rose-flavoured ice cream once which I ended up not liking as the taste was akin to chewing on rose petals.  Note to self: I like to smell flowers, not taste them nor eat flower-scented stuff.

That horrible aftertaste lingered in my mouth and I had to eat something else to get rid of the taste.  Suffice to say, I threw the remainder into my kitchen sink.....not only was it RM5.30 poorly spent, it was wasted calories. >:(

It was after I had the ice cream that I decided to check out a few youtube videos reviewing this product just to see what they said.  The first thing that many of them mentioned was that the flavour was "pelik" (strange).  I felt that too coz I just couldn't put my finger on what I was tasting as I didn't know what sakura tasted like.  Of course, there were those who gave it the thumbs up (most of them anyway, no surprises there).  Very few mentioned that it was extremely sweet except for one...and that's why his review was the only one that resonated with me.  He even referenced "boleh potong kaki" (can amputate leg), a risk that diabetics may suffer from.  He went further to say that the Magnum Cherry Blossoms was the sweetest of all the five ice creams he tried (yes, he tried all five in this one video), even sweeter than the Classic (which is already sweet). This same guy also made reference to the taste of it being similar to consuming a 'red liquid', a cough mixture we're all too familiar with (hey, those were my exact thoughts too).  So, I found myself in agreement with his review the most because we came to the same conclusion mah!  One did say that if it's not sweet, it's not Magnum!  P/S: Most of the YouTubers were given two sticks of ice cream for their review...but most could only 'stomach' eating one as the exceedingly sweet taste of it made it too "jelak" to eat another.

I went on to google and found that there are many drinks and snacks made with cherry blossom flowers/flavours like sakura-cha (tea), sakura kit kat, Starbucks cherry blossom-themed drinks, sakura mochi, sakura castella, sakura jelly, sakura chips, even sakura pocky.  Well, if I see any sakura-flavoured items in future, I'll run the other way.  No more sakura-flavoured anything from now on! >_<

But even more difficult to tolerate than the weird unique sakura flavour was the overly sweet vanilla ice cream and even way sweeter pink chocolate coating.  The only positive thing I can say about this ice cream is its pretty in pink looks and packaging...that's about it.  So, this is my short.....and (extremely) sweet post (literally) on Magnum Cherry Blossoms (to think that there are people out there who can actually stomach the sweetness of this ice cream is beyond my comprehension)! >_<