National Jelly Bean Day
Tiny, colorful, bean-shaped candy that can taste like buttered popcorn or champagne or toasted marshmallow. National Jelly Bean Day on April 22 is a celebration of one of America's most specifically-engineered sweets.
Why it matters
POP A HANDFUL!
It’s National Jelly Bean Day — April 22. The day we celebrate America’s most precisely-engineered candy. 50+ flavors. Thousands of combinations. One handful. Go.
The Story
The jelly bean’s history is a strange braid — Middle Eastern confectionery, American industrialization, and one Ronald Reagan smoking-cessation trick.
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, a small candy company called Herman Goelitz (founded in 1898 in Oakland, California) 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.
You can tell a lot about a fellow’s character by his way of eating jellybeans.
How Jelly Bellys Are Made
Four steps of the mysterious candy-making process:
Center Makes
Sugar, corn syrup, fruit puree (for real flavors), and gelatin mixed into a soft dough. Deposited into cornstarch molds to form the bean-shaped centers.
The Shell Forms
Centers tumble in rotating drums while sugar syrup is sprayed on. The shell builds up in layers over 7 to 14 days. Each drum makes 900 pounds at a time.
Flavor & Polish
Final flavor coating applied. Then tumbled with beeswax and carnauba wax to make them glossy and unstick from each other.
Quality Sort
Machines and humans remove misshapen or discolored beans. Jelly Belly aims for 50+ beans per ounce to fit their signature 50-flavor tins.
Iconic Jelly Bean Flavors
Six Jelly Belly flavors that defined the brand — loved, hated, or both:
Did You Know?!
Reagan commissioned blueberry Jelly Bellys.
For his 1981 inauguration — so he could serve red, white, and blue patriotic mixes. 3.5 tons flown to the White House. Blueberry became a permanent flavor.
Jelly Belly makes flavors to your order.
Their R&D team will develop custom flavors on request. Past commissions: Coca-Cola, Tabasco, and for one major-league team, a personalized flavor for their mascot.
The Harry Potter jelly beans are real.
Jelly Belly licensed Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans — including the weird ones (earwax, grass, dirt, sardine). A genuine bestseller since 2000.
Jelly beans are fat-free.
Pure sugar and flavor. Not “healthy” — but not fatty. Each bean is about 4 calories. The whole bag is the math problem.
Read & Taste
Candyfreak
Steve Almond · 2004
A journalist’s tour of American candy. Funny, warm, deeply reported. The jelly bean chapter alone is worth the book.
Sweets: A History of Temptation
Tim Richardson · 2002
The long history of confectionery from ancient sugar to modern jelly beans. Surprisingly literary; great gift for a sweet-tooth reader.
Candy: The Sweet History
Beth Kimmerle · 2003
Illustrated history of American candy. Lots of jelly bean lore; many vintage ads. Coffee-table book for candy nostalgia.
Pair It With
Any sugar-high pop music. This is silly-candy day, not refined-confection day.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1971 or 2005). Either version.
Jelly Belly factory tour in Fairfield, CA. Free, surprisingly fascinating. Best candy factory tour in America.
A Jelly Belly 50-flavor gift tin. $20. Guaranteed to delight any recipient.
Show The Bowl!
Tag us @celebrationnation with #JellyBeanDay. Favorite flavor combinations welcome.
How to celebrate
Simple pleasures:
- 🍬 Buy a bag. Jelly Belly's 50-flavor mix is the definitive version. Try flavors you don't recognize.
- 🥣 Do a flavor-guessing game. Everyone closes eyes; guesses flavor. Jelly Belly comes with a flavor key.
- 🎨 Sort by color. Therapeutic. Kids love it. Adults pretend they don't.
- 🧁 Bake with them. Jelly bean cookies, cupcakes, ice cream toppings. The candy holds up in the oven better than you'd think.
- 🎁 Gift a jar. An elaborately-filled jar of jelly beans is a surprisingly charming small gift.
Celebration ideas by audience
For families
Flavor guessing game is an all-ages Family favorite. Jelly Belly has 50+ flavors; the key is online.
For kids
Kids sorting by color is borderline meditative. Also: don't let them eat the whole bag. They will.
For couples
Adult jelly beans: Jelly Belly cocktail flavors (piña colada, strawberry daiquiri). Pair with the actual cocktails for a flight.
At the office
Jar of jelly beans on the desk is an instantly iconic move. Pro tip: Jelly Belly, not the cheap brands. The flavors justify the price.
At school
Classic classroom-guessing game. Great for teaching about flavor, taste, and the language of describing what we eat.
In your community
Easter egg hunts are the peak jelly-bean moment of the American year. Every hunt includes a jelly-bean prize table.
On your own
A small bag, a quiet afternoon, a book. Don't eat the whole thing. You'll regret it.
More to celebrate
