"When they say every flavor, they mean every flavor..."
-- Ron Weasley (PS6)
"Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans--A Risk With Every Mouthful!"
-- advertisement at the Quidditch World Cup (GF8)
Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans are a popular sweet for kids at Hogwarts. They buy them from the lunch trolley on the Hogwarts Express and from Honeydukes in Hogsmeade. They give them for Christmas gifts and as gifts when someone is ill and in the hospital wing. Bertie Bott’s Beans are sold in bags (PS17). One of the most famous sweets in the wizarding world, Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans are essentially the same as Muggle jelly beans, but with flavors that Muggles would never expect.
According to Ron, there are ordinary flavors like chocolate and peppermint and marmalade, but also more adventuresome ones like spinach and liver and tripe (PS6). George said he'd had a booger-flavored one. Dumbledore said that, in his youth, he ate a vomit-flavored one and was put off Bertie Bott's Beans for quite a while. Eventually he tried what he thought might be a "nice toffee," only to discover that the flavor was actually ear wax (PS17).
Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans was creating by inventor Bertie Bott (1935 - present) quite by mistake. His original purpose was to create tasty candies from food but he accidentally included a pair of dirty socks in his experiment. Bertie recognized the sales potential of a candy that presented a "a risk with every mouthful!" (fw)
flavors of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans NOTE: These are the only flavors mentioned in the books.
- baked bean (PS6)
- booger (at least George Weasley said so) (PS6)
- chocolate (PS6)
- coconut (PS6)
- coffee (PS6)
- curry (PS6)
- ear wax (PS17)
- grass (PS6)
- liver (PS6)
- marmalade (PS6)
- pepper (PS6)
- peppermint (PS6)
- sardine (PS6)
- spinach (PS6)
- sprouts (PS6)
- strawberry (PS6)
- toast (PS6)
- toffee (PS17)
- tripe (PS6)
- vomit (PS17)
Commentary
Notes
In the U.S. and Canada, the Muggle version of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans are made by the 
Jelly Belly company. They are sold in bags and also in boxes. The flavors include sardine, pepper, grass, horseradish, vomit, booger, earwax, and dirt. New flavors have been added recently: earthworm, spaghetti, spinach, and soap. Personally, I like the pepper and grass flavors the best, although spaghetti is interesting too. -SVA
New in 2006 were bacon and rotten egg. (Eww.) -BH
NOTE:
Dumbledore's age is beging debated since the release of DH. According to Rowling, Dumbledore is about 150, but that doesn't fit well with the facts in the book. As relates to beans, hoever, we can't learn much more. Since Dumbledore's "youth" would have been sometime in the mid- to late-1800s, and since Bertie Bott didn't even invent his famous sweet until at least the mid-1900s, this entire story may be purely invented. On the other hand, we don't know how old Dumbledore was when this happened or at what age he considered himself no longer "in his youth."
Pensieve (Comments)
Tags: disgusting famous sweets
