If any of you have visited Pinterest in the past few months, you’ve likely seen an advertisement for “Silky Gem Crystal Candy.”

The advertisements usually feature an attractive influencer opening a box of individually wrapped crystalline candies, which look like a cross between the crystals sold in new-age stores in tourist attractions and fancy soaps sold at tourist attractions.

In the advertisements I’ve seen, the influencer will hold an unwrapped crystal candy near a microphone and take a large bite. The microphone picks up the crisp, crunchy outer shell of the candy (the crystal), and then the soft, chewy inside. The influencer’s face implies what they’ve just eaten is comparable only to ambrosia. Meanwhile, I’m watching this video like a poor Victorian child staring through the window of a fancy bakery, salivating over food I can’t afford.

I reviewed the prices for various sample boxes on Silky Gems’ website, and immediately determined it was too expensive for me. Also, I couldn’t find any information explaining what the candy actually tasted like, and I wasn’t willing to blow $30+ on what could be disappointing. However, I kindly received a sample box for my birthday so I could finally satisfy my curiosity.

I received the box in the mail on Tuesday and then made plans with a group of friends to try the candies together. We are all sugar fiends, close to Silky Gems’ target audience. I imagine Silky Gems’ actual target audience is sugar addicts from either the Bay Area, Seattle, or Vancouver, who have been exposed to Asian candies and were familiar with flavors like matcha, lychee, and li hing mui.

The sample box I received was a delightful mix of flavors, some expected and others surprising. It included classic fruit flavors like raspberry, pineapple, and lemon, but also unique ones like pickle, blood orange, and white chocolate. The variety was intriguing, but I was unsure how the chocolate flavors would blend with the candy’s texture.

One of the key ingredients in silky Gem Crystal Candies is agar (or agar-agar), a jelly-like substance derived from algae. It’s a popular vegetarian/vegan substitute for gelatin, and as a vegetarian and sugar addict, I was thrilled to try something made with it. I appreciate any effort to reduce our reliance on animal byproducts, and agar’s potential to create guilt-free treats like these candies is a step in the right direction.

My sincere hope was that the candies would taste similar to dried, crystallized pineapple. This stuff is sold at most grocery stores (like Whole Foods, Rite Aid, and Safeway) and fruit-based tourist attractions like Casa de Fruita. It tastes divine. The sweet, crystallized outside gives way to a bright, chewy interior with a fresh burst of pineapple flavor. Because it’s dried, it will last a few weeks, and the flavors are so strong you really don’t want to eat more than a few pieces at a time.

If not dried pineapple, then I hoped it may taste something like these strawberry mochi candies I can only get from Japanese grocery stores (or Amazon, I guess). These strawberry mochis are light, sweet, delicate, and chewy. They’re what I imagine the food of Care Bears or Fairies to be. They’re what I always wanted Turkish Delight to taste like, before I went to Greece and Turkey and tried Turkish Delight, whereupon I realized it was “just okay.”

So, itching with anticipation, the moment came to try the Silky Gem candy. We were ready for our combined culinary and ASMR experience. We admired the beautiful packaging and the variety of crystal candies. Each of us selected a different flavored candy, with the intent of comparing and contrasting flavors. I pinched off a piece, relishing in the delightful, crispy sound of the candy breaking apart. I took a bite.

… And I made the same face my puppy does when she bites off a piece of her chew toy and realizes it’s just rubber.

We had the same initial reaction: delight at the crunchy, layered exterior, which quickly gave way to confusion as we reached the candy’s interior. I expected a smooth, soft, jelly-like texture, like Turkish Delight.

The inside of this candy reminded me of many things, very few of them good. It reminded me of undercooked tapioca pearls, the kind you sort of grunt through before tossing out your milk tea. Or the gel you might see inside a bicycle seat or shoe insert. Or sodium polyacrylate after it has absorbed a lot of liquid.

The off-putting texture could have been forgiven if the candy flavors had been good. Unfortunately, the flavors were really faint. The candy was extremely sweet, and you could feel the sugar crystals dissolve in your mouth, but the next strongest flavor was agar, followed by whatever flavor was present in the candy. Unsurprisingly, the chocolate-based flavors did not pair well with the agar and sugar, although the fruit flavors didn’t improve much. Sometimes, the pineapple flavor or pickle scent would come through, but the candies all tasted quite similar.

We tried splitting candies and taste-tasting different ones to get a broader understanding of the candies, just to make sure that one candy wasn’t a sad outlier. The only outliers were candies that tasted slightly better than others, because the flavors were stronger, like blood orange. The fruit-flavored gem candies made me wish I was eating the fruit instead.

The chocolate-flavored gem candies were revolting. I’m actually surprised the company produced so many varieties of this candy when it tastes so strange. It reminds me of this passage from Andy Weir’s “Artemis,” which describes the future of moon cuisine, aptly referred to as “Gunk.”

Gunk is basically algae and flavor extracts, except the main character explains that the more Gunk tries to taste like food, the less it does. I think if the Crystal Gem candy tasted a bit more like a “combination” of “lychee-pear-peach” (aka some kind of vague fruit) then it would have been less disappointing.

I gave several of the remaining candies to my friends so that their families could try them, and I asked them to report back if anything interesting happened. The reviews I got were not positive.

An interesting note I saw in some of the advertisements was that the candy was “guilt-free” and “healthy.” I’m still not sure what the company is trying to suggest with that wording. Usually, “guilt-free” implies either portion control or substituting an ingredient for something less calorically dense, like monk fruit for sugar. However, if you read the nutrition information, the main ingredients are sugar and agar, followed by various flavorings.

Agar is not a one-to-one replacement for gelatin. If you use too much, the texture will become clumpy and gritty. I can’t help but think that was what happened with this candy. While the agar leads to a cool-looking crystalline exterior, the interior is way too stiff.

If the beautiful ASMR videos and multiple five-star reviews are encouraging you to spend $30+, then that’s your right as a consumer. But I will say that after trying this myself, I realize that in many of the ASMR videos, the actors don’t look like they’re enjoying their food. If you want to ignore everything I’ve just told you, then go for it. Otherwise, you’re better off buying dried fruit from Walmart.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a bunch of leftover candy I need to throw out.