I don't chew gum very often. Usually only when I feel a bit sick. I chewed it a lot during pregnancy to help with morning sickness. Today when I was at the Japanese Supermarket (Nippon Foods) this gum was on sale.
I'm not really a big fan of Japanese plum, because usually it's sour and burns my tongue. But this gum is not "umeboshi" (pickled plum), it's just plum, so I figured it might taste ok. It was on sale for $1 per pack so I figured if it was gross, it wasn't going to leave a big hole in my pocket.
The pack itself is quite pretty, which I think drew me in somewhat because of the cute plum blossoms. On the side of the pack it states "梅の味とシソの香り" which means it has the flavour of plum and the aroma of shiso leaves.
Each gum piece is long and flat and individually packaged in silver foil and then an outer pink paper wrapper with plum blossoms on one side and the Lotte Ume Gum logo on the other. There are 9 pieces per pack.
Upon opening the piece of gum there is a vaguely sweet smell that reminds me of cherry. The gum is sweet to taste and at first has a very strong taste of plum but there are also hints of something else that reminds me of cherry or cherry blossoms. For the first minute of chewing the flavour is quite strong, and it's really quite pleasant. As stated on the box there is a shiso aroma that comes out while chewing the gum, I'm not a fan of shiso, but this is ok as it's not too strong and is only temporary.
As with most gums, the longer you chew this gum the weaker the flavour gets. After 2 minutes or so the flavour is quite weak and it stayed that way until 5 minutes when I discarded it.
I found that 5 minutes was the maximum for me because around then was when I started to feel really thirsty. In any case they did the trick and the hit of sugar combined with a bit of chewing made me start to feel better.
If you want a long-lasting gum then this is not the right choice. However it is an interesting flavour to try and would definitely satisfy a sweet craving. It's good value just for trying something out of the box. :)
