Christmas is a wonderful time for those with a sweet tooth. Not only can you hope for fantastic gifts like selection boxes or crates of retro goodies but you can bet that you’ll also encounter a tin of Roses or Quality Street on your travels. And it’s at the tin of Quality Street where it all goes horribly wrong…
Since a child, I’ve always preferred Quality Street to Roses (and don’t get me started on the filth that is Celebrations and Miniature Heroes). I’m more of a toffee/caramel person and find that Roses tend to be a bit sickly, which is why I avoid the Quality Street “creams” offerings like the plague.
Picture the scene. I had (unfortunately) easy access to a tin of QS and was plucking out what I thought to be the Caramel Deluxe. It’s a fairly hard sweet, lozenge in stature and dressed in a delicate little brown plastic coat. So I unwrapped it, shoved it in my gob and only then did I realise the horrible error of my ways.
It wasn’t a Caramel Deluxe but an imposter. An orange creme no less. Sickly, soft and tasting like someone had synthesised Calpol medicine and covered it in chocolate. I spat it out in disgust and referred to the “menu” that accompanies the chocolates to find out what had happened.
A who's who in the Quality Street world
As you can see from the photo (click to enlarge), the orange creme is described as more of a round shape with the toffee deluxe in it’s lozenge guise. The orange creme also has an orange wrapper, toffee deluxe brown. So far so good. However, that’s just on the menu card. In reality the differences aren’t so obvious…
Orange creme (left) vs toffee deluxe (right), with flash
Orange creme (left) vs toffee deluxe (right), sans flash
Now you’ll see what an easy mistake it was. The Orange creme is the same shape as the toffee deluxe, just without the ridges (even though these are shown on the menu). The wrapper colours are very similar, even more so when only illuminated by a bunch of flickering Christmas tree lights and the Queen’s speech on the TV.
Let this be a warning to all consumers of Quality Street! Lessons have been learned. Next year I’m sticking to Mingles.
6 Responses to Beware of rogue Quality Street
Pervy December 19, 2008
I agree it’s shocking. I too had easy access to some QS this week and NEARLY got tricked into eating a dirty orange one. Luckily a chocolate-aware colleague pointed it out to me before I got poisoned. It’s an outrage – why isn’t the Daily Mail getting upset by this, when they’re happy to rant for weeks about some harmless TV personalities joking about an encounter with some gothslut.
Sketch Online January 27, 2009
Don’t you just eat the stick and round ones first, savour the purple ones…grudgingly eat the carmel ones and then get sick eating the ones you don’t like as throwing them away would be a crime?
Emmanuelle October 29, 2009
Ha! Laughed at your story. I happen to be a true lover of the Orange cream Quality Street, and had the same thing happening to me – only in reverse: i got all pissed off looking for my sweet round favourite and not finding it. My friend, however, did find it – the same way you did, and ended up spitting it out in sheer outrage. And that happened a while ago, they really should update their little who’s who, shouldnt they?
Nadia March 19, 2010
regretfully i encountered the same experience fortunately i have emailed the company in question to inform them of their rookie mistake. so happy there are other people who are in the same position as me.
p.s i agree it tastes like calpol although i do enjoy a good tofee delux.
lots of love
N
xx
Nadia December 20, 2010
Just to update everyone i have been recently indulging in a rather large tin of quality street i think you should all know that even though i tried to warn the company about their failings they have done NOTHING to rectify the problem i am calling a general strike until we get some answers.
Becks January 11, 2012
I was distraught the day I found my tin without any orange cremes I moaned to nestle as I only like the orange cremes and strawberry ones I got a £3.00 voucher lol!!! My partner later on found out the rogue sweet and spat it out in disgusts, he was convinced it was just orange creme just a different shape….. So regretfully I ate one!!! Mmmmmm that was a big mistake!!!
Glad I’m not alone in this! Strikes me as an early April fools lol