Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans
"When they say every flavor, they mean every flavor..."
-- Ron Weasley
(PS6)
"Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans--A Risk With Every Mouthful!"
-- advertisement at the
Quidditch World Cup
(GF8)
One of the most famous sweets in the
wizarding world is
Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. These beans are essentially the same
as Muggle jelly beans, but with flavors that Muggles would never expect.
Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans was creating by inventor
Bertie Bott
(1935 - present)
quite by mistake. His original purpose was to create tasty candies from
food but he accidentally included a pair of dirty socks in his experiment.
Bertie recognized the
sales potential of a candy that presented a
"a risk with every mouthful!"
(fw)
According to Ron, there are ordinary flavors like chocolate and peppermint and marmalade, but also more adventuresome ones like spinach and liver and tripe (PS6). George said he'd had a booger-flavored one. Dumbledore said that, in his youth, he ate a vomit-flavored one and was put off Bertie Bott's Beans for quite a while. Eventually he tried what he thought might be a "nice toffee," only to discover that the flavor was actually ear wax (PS17).
Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans are a popular sweet for kids at Hogwarts. They buy them from the lunch trolley on the Hogwarts Express and from Honeydukes in Hogsmeade. They give them for Christmas gifts and as gifts when someone is ill and in the hospital wing. Bertie Bott's Beans are sold in bags (PS17).
flavors of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans
NOTE: These are the only flavors mentioned in the books.
baked bean (PS6)
booger (at least George Weasley said so) (PS6)
chocolate (PS6)
coconut (PS6)
coffee (PS6)
curry (PS6)
ear wax (PS17)
grass (PS6)
liver (PS6)
pepper (PS6)
peppermint (PS6)
sardine (PS6)
spinach (PS6)
sprouts (PS6)
strawberry (PS6)
toast (PS6)
toffee (PS17)
vomit (PS17)
In the U.S. and Canada, the Muggle version of
Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans are made by the
Jelly Belly company.
They are sold in bags and also in boxes. The flavors
include sardine, pepper, grass, horseradish, vomit, booger, earwax, and
dirt. New flavors have been added recently: earthworm, spaghetti, spinach,
and soap. Personally, I like the pepper and grass flavors the best, although
spaghetti is interesting too. -SVA
New in 2006 were bacon and rotten egg. (Eww.) -BH
NOTE:
Dumbledore's age is beging debated since the release of DH. According to Rowling, Dumbledore is about 150, but that doesn't fit well with the facts in the book. As relates to beans, hoever, we can't learn much more. Since Dumbledore's "youth"
would have been sometime in the mid- to late-1800s, and since
Bertie Bott didn't even invent his
famous sweet until at least the mid-1900s, this
entire story may be purely invented. On the other hand, we don't know how
old Dumbledore was when this
happened or at what age he considered himself no longer "in his youth."
