Trader Joe's Sweetened Dried Lemon Slices & Sweetened Dried Orange Slices

I am not one to rush the seasons. Why pumpkin spice has to invade our shelf space one week earlier every year is beyond me. Can't we enjoy the current season, even the fading of it, for what it is? But ask me again in the middle of February and I'll be the first to say, "WHERE IS SPRINGGGGG??" And while pumpkin is slowly making its way into TJ stores, as of two days ago, actual pumpkins have started to appear but we haven't been hit by the full blast of pumpkin yet. I'm just not ready to let go of peaches, plums, and dried citrus fruits. What? Dried citrus fruits??

I've been introduced to these lemon slices by a number of friends. Count me a convert. Never thought I was missing dried lemon slices from my life but oh man are they tasty. Here's my hasty go at a fully biased but unbiased review. And yes, what is this oxymoron - dried but moist? (Healthcare people shush). 

Pronounceable ingredients, a fair bit of a sugar, but it is a sweetened lemon slice. I've enjoyed roasted lemon slices as part of a roasted lemon chicken (if you cook it right like Ina says, they sort of caramelize and become sweet-ish and all sorts of wonderful) but never dried as a snack.

1) It's chewy but with some resistance, especially with the rind bits. My favorite texture.

2) It is sour but doesn't make your face pucker. It's also sweet. Kind of like biting into an edible lemonade. Not at all like eating a lemon.

3) My favorite way of eating these is straight out of the bag as a snack. Chewy, sweet, a little sour but not too much. Hits the spot.

As it turns out, they come also in orange slices too. I assumed that it would be just the orange iteration of the same product. No no no, You can't ever assume that just because two people are sisters or cousins that they are the same.

They literally recycled the same product description. This one has added vitamin C and more sugar. Makes sense - oranges have more sugar than lemons anyway. 

4) The orange slices are not at all the same. The texture is similar, but the taste is totally different. They start off tasting sweet but ends with a bitterness. Like a spurned ex-lover. 

5) Part of the problem is the rind to segment slice ratio. The orange rinds are thicker, so you're eating a lot more of it. The lemon slice package I purchased for this post happens to have smaller slices than what I've already had, but even then the taste doesn't change with a bigger slice. 

6) So basically with the lemons, you're eating a nice sweetened, chewy but not dry-as-jerky dried lemon slice. But with the oranges, it seems like you're just eating rind with some sugar on top. Sweet with a bitter aftertaste. Not very pleasant. 

7) Does the difference in taste account for the $0.30 price difference? $1.99 for the orange slices and $2.29 for the dried lemon slices.

I'm not one to repurchase the orange slices, but these lemon slices are the bomb dot com. Like take back to your overseas family to win some relative points. Or peace offering for not talking to them for 2-3 years at a time. =X

TL;DR: Trader Joe's Sweetened Dried Lemon Slices. Like eating edible lemonade candy in slice form! 9 out of 10. Mantou Joe repurchase? Sparks joy! Yes! 

Trader Joe's Sweetened Dried Orange Slices. Like eating chewy orange rinds dusted in sugar. 5.5 out of 10. Mantou Joe repurchase? Sparks uncertainty and questioning of life choices! Thank u next!