In my never-ending quest to be smoke-free, I always need something to occupy my hands and mouth. Kopiko is my latest crutch. It's a coffee candy made in Indonesia and distributed in the Philippines and other countries.

KOPIKO Coffee Extract

That's what it says on the bag, but it's just candy that contains coffee as one of the ingredients. I recently bought two bags, not knowing how much it cost in advance. One of my brothers-in-law was going downtown for other reasons and I just had him get them for me. I would never waste a trip just for some kind of confection.

I'm surprised at how inexpensive this candy actually is. It's 150 grams (5.269 ounces) and it costs 25.30 pesos (or about 53 cents in US dollars at the current exchange rate). You can't touch any kind of hard candy, in this amount, for that price in the US.

Ingredients

Okay, so it isn't the healthiest candy (what candy is?) to have around. I'll live with the consequences. The ingredients are sugar, glucose (another form of sugar), vegetable oil (probably partially hydrogenated), coffee extract, butter, emulsifier, and caramel.

I've seen and eaten worse.

Made in Indonesia

According to the packaging (and I can't read ALL of these languages), Kopiko is produced in Jakarta, Indonesia and is distributed to the countries of Malaysia, Philippines and Viet Nam.

I spoke to my wife last night and she told me this coffee candy is available at most of the Asian stores in the Phoenix, Arizona metro area. It's imported to the US along with thousands of other Asian products, including jasmine rice from Thailand.

Comparison to other Coffee Candies

In the past 30 years, I've had plenty of opportunities to sample all kinds of confections containing coffee. Until I tasted Kopiko, I thought that the Nips candy (with a variety of flavors) was the best. Kopiko is far superior in taste and coming from an American coffee fanatic, that says a lot.

I really can't say anything more about Kopiko except that it's now included in my arsenal of weapons to keep my mouth occupied while I'm writing stuff like this.

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