National Jelly Bean Day

Jelly beans descend from Turkish Delight, a Middle Eastern confection dating to the 18th century, soft, flour-based, gelatin-textured, dusted with sugar. American candy-makers in the mid-1800s combined the soft interior of Turkish Delight with a hard sugar shell (a "panning" technique used for Jordan almonds), and the jelly bean was born. The first U.S. jelly bean appears in advertisements in Boston around 1861, where they were marketed as a Civil War care-package candy.

For the next century, jelly beans were generic, vague sugar flavors in Easter colors. Then in 1976, the Goelitz Confectionery Company (founded in 1869 in Belleville, Illinois by Gustav Goelitz) launched Jelly Belly. Their innovation: flavoring the interior too, using real fruit purees and natural flavorings. First eight flavors: Very Cherry, Lemon, Cream Soda, Green Apple, Root Beer, Tangerine, Grape, Licorice. The company expanded to 50 flavors by the 1990s. The jelly bean became a gourmet candy overnight.

The company's most famous customer was Ronald Reagan, who had taken up jelly beans in 1967 to help him quit smoking while governor of California. As president from 1981-1989, he kept a jar of Jelly Bellys on the Oval Office desk and gave them to every foreign dignitary. 3.5 tons of Jelly Belly jelly beans were flown to the White House for Reagan's 1981 inauguration including the first batch of blueberry Jelly Bellys, created specifically so Reagan could serve red, white, and blue jelly beans.

National Jelly Bean Day, April 22, was established by the candy industry in the early 2000s. The timing is deliberate: late-April falls in the week after Easter, which is by far the jelly bean's biggest commercial moment. Americans eat over 16 billion jelly beans at Easter alone.

Four steps of the mysterious candy-making process:

Six Jelly Belly flavors that defined the brand, loved, hated, or both: