I Tried Dunkin’ Iced Coffee Flavored Jelly Beans So You Don’t Have To

Join me on a journey of culinary discovery. (This is for the Editorial Fellowship.)

I recently discovered Dunkin' Iced Coffee Flavored Jelly Beans in the Easter candy section of CVS. They looked terrible, so I immediately bought a bag — this called for a taste test.

Hip2Save / Via hip2save.com

What I knew: There are five flavors of Dunkin’ Iced Coffee Flavored Jelly Beans, each more audacious than the last.

Questions I hoped to answer: Did anyone ask for this? Who covets these beans, and why? Are they as bad as they look?

Dunkin' Butter Pecan Iced Coffee Flavored Jelly Beans

Alice Lahoda

These jelly beans taste like if the concept of air was a flavor. I thought maybe I ate a defunct bean, so I tried another, and another… until I’d consumed every so-called “Butter Pecan” jelly bean in the bag. My throat burned from the sugar, my stomach ached from the corn syrup, and my head hurt from trying so hard to accurately identify a flavor profile that never was.

(To Dunkin’s credit, the after-aftertaste vaguely resembles a Jelly Belly Buttered Popcorn jelly bean.)

Dunkin' Toasted Coconut Iced Coffee Flavored Jelly Beans

Alice Lahoda

These jelly beans honestly just taste like if Toasted Coconut had a cousin who you drunkenly made out with at a party once. And sugar. They just taste like sugar.

~*~ANTACID BREAK~*~

Healthline / Via healthline.com

Waiting for my triple dose of Pepto Bismol to kick in, I paused to appreciate Dunkin’s sheer gall for marketing these jelly beans as Easter candy. It’s deliciously ironic that a product celebrating Christ’s return is conclusive evidence that God abandoned us long ago.

Dunkin' Caramel Latte Iced Coffee Flavored Jelly Beans

Alice Lahoda

The Caramel Latte jelly beans raise more questions than they answer:

How does their bright orange hue look so enticingly delicious, yet they taste solely of artificial sweetener?

Dunkin’ sells caramel iced coffee, so what about this jelly bean makes it caramel latte-flavored?

Why don’t any of these jelly beans taste even vaguely like coffee — not even akin to the experience of smelling a stranger’s coffee breath?

Dunkin' Hazelnut Iced Coffee Flavored Jelly Beans

Alice Lahoda

I was briefly concerned about this flavor since I’m allergic to hazelnuts, but you can rest secure in the knowledge that the Hazelnut jelly beans never even touched a hazelnut.

Honestly, they just taste like every other jelly bean so far: chewy sugar.

Dunkin' French Vanilla Iced Coffee Flavored Jelly Beans

Alice Lahoda

Finally (mercifully!) I reached the last flavor. The French Vanilla jelly beans are white with faint brown specks dotted throughout. I wondered if maybe the beans with more brown specks corresponded to the strength of the vanilla flavor in some way. Nope! That’s just food coloring and the illusion of order in a bag of chaos. But these jelly beans do accurately recreate Dunkin’s most pervasive coffee flavor of all: burnt.

Closing Thoughts

Dunkin' & Frankford Candy / Via news.dunkindonuts.com

There's so much depth to these nasty little beans, from their unnatural sheen to my days-long stomachache following the tasting. I find it particularly hilarious that the packaging warned of "bioengineered food ingredients" inside, because no shit. Frankly, I'm impressed the FDA allowed Dunkin’ to call it food.

Throughout this process, my husband (equal parts concerned and frustrated) asked if maybe I wanted to take a break.

“I am not a quitter,” I lied, so he dutifully departed to the depths of our apartment, which is a shrine to the myriad projects I’ve abandoned over the years. But these beans are different; the world needs to know about these gelatinous monstrosities.

Honestly, I stuck with this tasting because Dunkin’ is practically a religion where I live (Boston, aka Beantown). And maybe it’s just the sugar talking, but these jelly beans grew on me over time. So like a true Bostonian, I will aggressively defend these ridiculous beans, even as I all but slander their name on BuzzFeed.

Yes, Dunkin’ Iced Coffee Flavored Jelly Beans are pretty disgusting, but I will absolutely buy another bag next year.

Final Rating: 3 stars

Dunkin' & Frankford Candy / Via news.dunkindonuts.com

But if you have a choice, go with a chocolate Easter bunny instead.

Would you try Dunkin' Iced Coffee Flavored Jelly Beans? Did this review do them justice? Sound off in the comments!