Usually mints are chalky and dry. The AquaDrop mints are meant to hydrate your mouth as well as give you a minty freshness. They do this without any sugar or carbs.

You get 12 mints per pack, each one about the same size as an oblong dime. The pack that I tested out were melon flavor. Note that there are both sugar-filled and sugar-free versions of these mints - make sure you go for the sugar free. There's no reason to toss extra sugar in your mouth when there's an alternative!

I'm not very fond of the packaging on this. Most mints I carry with me come in small sized packages, perfect for fitting into the purse. With these, the pack is about the size of a deck of cards and you have to pop each mint out of the foil container. The mint itself has a "sort of hard" outside, in a yin-yang of thicker mint and translucent (but still hard) hydrating side. While it is hard, it's a little gummy and I wouldn't want to carry one loose in my purse. This means you have to carry the whole large pack with you. There isn't even any easy way to perforate off a strip of mints, like you would with many medicines.

Not only that, but when I popped one out, apparently I broke the seal on its neighbor, something I didn't notice but my boyfriend commented on when he went to try one. So that's not a great package design.

OK, on to the taste. The mint is a tiny bit minty, but primarily melony in flavor. It really is quite juicy - I was impressed at how quickly it had my mouth watering and wet. It's not that the translucent side "empties" - it remains hard throughout the sucking, melting down at the same rate that the mint side does. I imagine the chemicals in this must just have a very good saliva activating impact.

It appears from the ingredients that 98% of this is isomalt. Isomalt is a sugar substitute made from the sugar beet. It is used primarily in candies, and from what I can see, has only been in the US since 1990. Maybe it's time for us to try out isomalt in a variety of other products, if it is this sweet! I did find the flavor in general to be very pleasant.

If these came in a smaller container, or in tear-off foil packets, I could see carrying one or two of these in my purse. You can sort of split them into 2 sets of 6 each, but that seems a bit much for me. Maybe a new version will come out soon that has single-drop servings, at which point I'll be quite pleased. Until then, I'm not going to give up my existing zero-carb mints to switch to these 2g/serving versions.


Lisa Shea's Library of Low Carb Books