Snack Corner 002 - Japan (Part 1)

Welcome to 'episode 2' of my snack corner series and this time we will still be in Asia, though instead the focus will be on Japan. I found that in general, Japanese snacks were more inventive and wacky than foods from other countries thus they often make good gifts for kids as they often combine great taste (though sometimes questionable flavours) with an element of fun.

1. Meiji Mazemaze Soft Sweets  - Various Soda Flavours

The packaging for these are typically exciting and is very much the style of Japanese sweets. The sweets had a crisp outer shell and the inside was chewy much like a starburst and in the pack, there are 5 flavours of melon soda, coca cola, ramune, lemonade and grape soda (from top to bottom). In terms of taste, my favourite one was the ramune one as it was the most 'refreshing' and the grape my least favourite (due to it again having the artificial grape flavour). Overall, the tastes were quite accurate apart from the melon soda, which I honestly wouldn't be able to tell you what it was without looking. On the pack, it encourages you 'mix' flavours by eating different ones at once but in reality, all it did was make it feel like you had a mouth full of unidentifiable sugar (which is probably the truth anyway), but I guess it can't hurt to have something 'fun'.

Taste - 3/10 

Uniqueness- 3/10

2. Kabaya Filled Pretzel Sticks- Sour Plum Flavour

Do these look familiar? Due to the obvious success of Pocky, there are many different companies in Japan that manufacture similar products, and this one is a mix of both the filling of pejoy and outside seasoning of pretz style biscuits (mentioned here). Initially, these were quite nice with the sour plum (or umeshu, which the Japanese eat with everything from rice to onigiri) bringing a nice tang to the snack, somewhat similar to salt and vinegar flavour crisps. However, after a few sticks, the combination of the sour dusting with the sour plum filling inside made it unpleasantly sour. So my advice is if you want to buy it, share it with some friends.

Taste - 4/10 

Uniqueness- 5/10

3. Kracie Soft Chewable Sweets- Rose Flavour

These look like they belong in a perfume shop somewhere, or perhaps dangling in your car, but are in fact chewy sweets. Opening up the packet gave a overwhelming rose aroma but thankfully, it tasted more subtly of rose (but still undeniably so). These are very much similar tasting to Turkish delight or other rose water desserts.

Taste - 4/10 

Uniqueness- 4/10

4. Sanrotsu Pirouettes Langue - Matcha Flavour

These have everything you want in a wafer roll; crispy, smooth and buttery with a lovely flake and dissolve in your mouth texture. The matcha flavour is also not too overwhelming and compliments the creaminess of the butter wafer well. I was very surprised at home nice it was considering how simple it looked, definitely worth a purchase if you enjoy these sorts of biscuits.

Taste - 8/10 

Uniqueness- 5/10

5. Stars Seven Barizu Peanut Chocolate Wafers

These were decidedly underwhelming and whilst it was a perfectly nice chocolate filled sandwiched by wafers, it was nothing special. In addition, whilst you could feel the crunch provided by the peanuts, I couldn't taste any nutty flavour which meant that the overall biscuit just tasted like any old chocolate wafer.

Taste - 3/10 

Uniqueness- 1/10

6. UHA Soda Sweets

 Now these sweets were very interesting as upon biting into one, you soon get a mouthfull of fizziness, akin to sherbet. I'm not sure why I was expecting a soft chewy sweet but instead these were super crunchy with a crispy shell and a chewy centre. Again, Japan really nails the flavour as it really feels that you have just drunk a sugary soda and the mouth of foam is really quite fun.

Taste - 5/10 

Uniqueness- 6/10

7. Amehama Roasted Coffee Soft Candy

Supposedly these contain real coffee, and I have to say, these are definitely some of the better coffee sweets I have tried. I was expecting the centre to have an almost truffle (or ganache) consistency which was dusted with a coffee or cocoa powder, but instead, it had a texture more akin to nougat, perhaps just a tad less chewy. The taste was very nice as rather than a sweet chocolately flavour with a hint of coffee as many other coffee flavoured sweets tend to be, these had a nice rich bitter hit right at the start and at least initially, strongly reminds me of a good, strong black coffee. Also, when you first open the sweets, you do get a lovely aroma of freshly made coffee.

Taste - 8/10 

Uniqueness- 5/10

8. Nobel Plum (Umeshu) Flavour Sweets

These do what they say on the tin (or plastic packet in this case). They're hard boiled, plum flavoured sweets that taste exceedingly similar to their other line of sour plum sweets. The only discernible difference is the lack of the extra sour coating. So if you like sour sweets, give these a try but otherwise, they're pretty unremarkable.

Taste - 3/10 

Uniqueness- 3/10

9. UHA Coffee Hard Candy

These tasted fairly decent with a decent coffee flavour complimented by the creaminess of the 'high concentration milk' (their words, not mine). These are basically Japanese coffee Worthers so decent tasting but nothing special.

Taste - 5/10 

Uniqueness- 2/10

10. Japanese Kitkat - Matcha/Chocolatory Moleson Flavour

Whilst kitkat's are not traditionally a Japanese snack, a unique market has crafted out a niche for kitkats within Japan, that is utterly unique to it. Whilst in most countries, the flavours of kitkats are limitted to a selection of 5-10, in Japan, there are literally hundreds of flavours with some even being unique to just a region of Japan. As such, one cannot have a snack review of japan without at least mentioning these chocolately wafers. The first, and perhaps the most well known 'Japanese' kitkat is the matcha flavour one and these can now be found in many countries in the world, imported from Japan. There isn't much to say about these except that their repuation is well deserved as the white chocolate-like base works wonderfully with the matcha flavour.

Taste - 7/10 

Uniqueness- 3/10

On the other hand, the chocolatory moleson flavour is less common and is the first kitkat to contain fruit and nut toppings, in this case, almonds and cranberries. Whilst this kitkat is also very nice, it is somewhat let down by the basic chocolate kitkat base overpowering the toppings. I couldn't really taste any of the cranberries which could have added a perfect contrasting tangyness to the bar and the almonds were also very muted. Nonetheless, these are fine but could have been so much better.

Taste - 5/10 

Uniqueness- 5/10

Overall, I think that Japan boasts a diverse range of snacks from traditional flavours like Umeshu (sour plum) to a whole host of modern and wacky flavours like cheesecake kitkats. For better or worse, they often nail the stated flavour almost exactly and generally look and feel like decent quality products.