T his candy originally evolved out of a mistake. 
I was running the Star Kay White candy department, which has
long had a specialization for ingredients used in ice cream.
Butter crunch, chocolate almond toffee, peppermint stick
are examples of the hard candies we make. Chocolate panning is also
an aspect of this operation.
During the mid 1980's we made a chocolate coated coffee bean for ice cream. Sounds good, but it doesn't work very well, because when the chocolate coated coffee beans are frozen in ice cream they become hard as rocks. So we developed a coffee hard candy that when coated with chocolate mimicked and improved on the concept of a chocolate coated coffee bean. Although we currently are not a retail product oriented company, we discussed in earnest making this confectionary product suitable for retail trade. As I toyed with this idea as a potentially good retail product, one of my key advisers was Jeannine Wall.
Jeannine died tragically October 7th 2006. It is hard to express the pain we as a company
felt in losing her as a friend and colleague. I decided then that these chocolate espresso
confections should be dedicated to her, both in memory and motivation.
"J9" often was how she signed her name, and thus we transferred her moniker to this product.
What you have in this two ounce pack of J9s is the result of that effort.
Hope you enjoy it, and "Catch the Buzz"®.
J9s are now available at The Food Emporium.
