Hempthy CBD Pick n Mix 300mg

Most shops selling this do not tell you it is a mixed pouch

Look at how this product is titled across the UK sites currently ranking for it. The majority call it a three hundred milligram CBD gummy pouch of thirty. Two of them keep the words pick and mix in the name. The rest do not.

That is a strange thing to leave out, because it is the entire product. This is not a bag of one sweet. It is an assortment, and the brand names six possible formats in it: fizzy gummy bears, sour peach rings, fizzy bottles, bubblegum bottles, cherry cola bottles and American hard gums.

It goes wrong in both directions. Somebody looking specifically for the mixed pouch cannot recognise it under a generic name, and somebody who orders what looks like a plain gummy opens a bag with six different things in it. Neither of them has been badly served on purpose, but neither has been told.

There is a clue about why. Three of the pages ranking for this product carry a wholesaler's internal stock code as their web address, and their descriptions are word for word identical. That is a supplier data feed poured onto a shop front with nobody reading it on the way through. A title loses two words like that, not because anyone decided it should.

Our own listing keeps the name intact, which is the least we can do about it.

The smallest sampler is the one that samples worst

Here is the arithmetic that nobody selling these has done.

The brand names six formats across its pick and mix range. Its exact wording on this size is that the contents can include those six, not that they do. Every size also carries a notice that the contents may differ from batch to batch.

Thirty sweets divided across six possible formats comes to about five of each, and that is only if all six actually turn up. With a stated batch variation and a can-include rather than a contains, some pouches will simply not have everything in them.

So the entry size is the least reliable way in the range to meet the range, which is awkward given that meeting the range is what an entry-size assortment is for. The thousand milligram pouch holds fifty pieces across the same six formats, which is around eight of each and a much better chance of seeing all of them.

None of that makes this a bad pouch. It makes it a small one, and a small assortment behaves differently from a large one. If your reason for buying a mix is to work out which Hempthy sweet you like, be aware that this size may answer the question incompletely.

What is in the pouch

The declaration reads: cannabidiol isolate, glucose syrup containing sulphites, sugar, corn starch, water, citric and malic acid, acidity regulator E331, flavourings, and colours E102, E129, E133 and E132.

Two of those colours are among the six that UK law requires to be sold with a statement about children's activity and attention. The full argument sits on the fizzy gummy bears listing and there is no point restating it here.

Sulphites are declared, in the glucose syrup. Twelfth Hempthy product we have written up, twelfth time no UK shop ranking for it mentions them.

The CBD is isolate at ninety nine point nine per cent, American sourced and made up in the UK. It carries no terpenes, so nothing in the pouch tastes remotely of hemp. The brand describes the range as vegan, gluten free and halal friendly, all of which follow from a recipe with no gelatine in it.

No serving instruction is published for this size by the brand or by any seller, which is unusual for the range and, given some of the instructions that do exist on the larger sizes, no great loss.

Who this pouch actually suits

Somebody who has not had a CBD sweet before. Ten milligrams a piece is the whole of the Food Standards Agency's daily advice for a healthy adult in a single sweet, which makes it the easiest tier in the range to keep track of. The imperial mints listing goes into what that figure is and where it comes from.

Somebody buying a first pouch for someone else. A small assortment is a lower-risk thing to hand over than fifty of one flavour they may dislike.

Somebody who wants a rough idea of the range rather than a thorough one. Five of each is enough to form an opinion, if all six turn up.

As a sweet it is unremarkable in a good way. The fizzy items are sharp for a second or two and then ordinary fruit sweetness. The bottles are chewier with no coating. The hard gums, if they appear, take genuine chewing. Nothing tastes of the CBD, because there is nothing in isolate to taste.

Who should skip it

Anyone who already knows they want a particular sweet. Buy that sweet. The three hundred milligram fizzy bears, sour peaches and hard gums all exist as their own pouches at the same ten milligrams a piece.

Anyone who wants to see the whole range properly. The thousand milligram pouch spreads across the same six formats with more of each.

Anyone avoiding tartrazine or allura red. Both are in this pouch. The imperial mints declare no colours at all and the hard gums use plant-derived ones.

Anyone avoiding sulphites, declared across the Hempthy sweet range apart from the mints.

And anyone who needs to know exactly what is in the bag before it arrives. The brand says the contents can vary, and a mixed pouch cannot be more specific than the maker is.