Meiji Chelsea Butterscotch (from Candy Japan)

Today's item for review comes to you and me courtesy of snack service "Candy Japan". You can check out their web site here or you can read my service review. Their package this time included both Chelsea candies and Bontan Ame. I reviewed Bontan Ame (quite favorably) in the past here. 

I recently saw a sequence of product redesigns on Foodbeast in which the artist removed most of the design and offered minimalist versions of such venerable logos as Nutella's and Pringle's. It's my opinion that all product design in the modern age is relatively informed. That is, it is purposefully inclusive of certain elements in order to build brand identity and catch the eye of consumers. Nothing is there that doesn't mean something. While the minimalist versions are striking, even beautiful and absolutely less overwhelming, they aren't what would be conducive to sales.

That brings me to the design of the Chelsea hard candies. This brand has been around for what seems like ages. Meiji has offered a variety of flavors over the years including an Earl Grey and chocolate one, but their web site currently only shows this butterscotch, brown sugar, and some yogurt varieties. The package design is based on the Chelsea area of the United Kingdom and it is still a little funky, but it used to be even funkier (see picture above). I'm not sure if those who buy these candies these days think twice about the design, but it is meant to evoke a certain image and it doesn't seem to be hurting sales and it does provide strong recognition and distinguished Chelsea from other hard candies.

There is another way in which Chelsea distinguishes itself from other hard candies and that is its quality. This is the most amazing buttery hard candy I've ever experienced. It's smooth as silk and super rich with a good balance between sweetness and buttery flavor. It's as refined a hard candy as you can experience. 

Often, I will say that something is limited by its presentation. It's "only" a hard candy so it can't be that great, but I honestly think this is that great despite being a hard candy. It's the sort of thing you can keep at the bottom of your purse and be actually happy when you rediscover it after having forgotten it for a month.

This is a great little package from Candy Japan with two thing which I truly enjoy. Though these may not be "exciting" options, they are tasty and unique to Japan.

Meiji Hore Hore Choco and Marble Choco (from Candy Japan)

Today's review fodder comes your way via Candy Japan, a service which provides two surprise packages of candy each month for a subscription fee of $25 (postage and handling included). They also provide translations and descriptions of the items they send on their site and by e-mail so that those who can't read Japanese can understand the surprises they receive. My previous review of their service is here. Candy Japan sent these items to me gratis.

One of these two items, Meiji's "Marble Choco", is a revisit. I reviewed it as part of a "petit" assortment in the past and without having had recent experience with M&M's. Now that I've lived in the U.S. and had access to M&M's for awhile, I find the Marble Choco a much better experience by comparison. This time around, they seemed to have a much stronger chocolate flavor, seemed appropriately sweet, and all around seemed to have greater flavor depth. It's possible that the "petit" version is different than the full-size tube, but I'm guessing it is me that has changed and not it. Note that the current version comes with one of a current series of stickers stuck inside the tube (free bonus).

The Hore Hore Choco is something I have not only not experienced before, but have never seen. It's a kid's candy which has one of the niftier concepts for these things. Last time I had one of these types of things, it was a sticky mess which didn't taste good at all. This time, the taste experience is mixed and the concept is for the Indiana Jones in all of us.

That's a sour lemon gummy, so it's a fake. Also, they don't come out that clean. Like a good archaeologist, you have to, er, "clean" it to get it to look that glossy. You can't see it, but there are kanji (Chinese characters) imprinted on the gummy.

The concept behind this is a treasure hunt. You "dig" into the soft chocolate with a spoon and excavate "treasure" (lemon or orange gummies - to simulate gold, of course). There are five kinds of treasure (pictured on the back and explained on Candy Japan's site), but if you get a sour one, it's a fake. Also, I'm here to say that, if you get a sour one, you're lucky. The sour gummies are fantastic tasting, especially the lemon one.

The treasure listing on the back of the bag.

Though the gummies are pretty tasty, the chocolate itself is so-so. It's on the sweet side and lacking in depth. It's clearly designed more for the textural qualities to allow you to dig into it with a spoon rather than for its taste. It doesn't taste bad at all, mind you. It's a little like soft fudge which hasn't had quite enough cocoa powder put in it. Kids should love it as should adults who absolutely hate anything resembling dark chocolate, but those with more sophisticated chocolate needs will find it wanting.

As entertainment candy goes, I really got a kick out of the Hore Hore Chocolate. I'm 49 and I'm still a little tickled at the notion of pretending to dig for treasure. I'd suggest the next concept be something to do with pirates. I'm sure they can carve a big "X" into their chocolate to mark the spot. If you have a kid in your life, I can't imagine he or she wouldn't enjoy this. It also would be kind of cool to have these on hand for an Indy Jones movie marathon as party favors.

Both of these deserve a "happy" rating, though it's more provisional for the Hore Hore Choco as you've either got to love the gummies and tolerate the chocolate or you've got to be able to tap into your inner child to find it worthwhile.

UHA One Piece Puccho Candy (via Candy Japan)

Consider a hypothetical Japanese business man who is transferred to the United States for about 10 years. He wasn't interested in American-style football before he came to the U.S., but he gradually develops an interest in it, comes to understand it, and attends some games. He can have conversations on the topic with native fans. While he doesn't like all American food, he does give various dishes a chance and settles on a handful that he really enjoys and partakes of regularly. While not totally integrated with the culture, he has found and has an affinity for aspects of it to varying degrees.

Around his 7th year in the U.S., he has a conversation with a Japanese colleague back home and this fellow asks him if he has ever been to Comic Con or visited a gaming or comic store. This coworker, who lives in Japan and has never been to the U.S., is an enormous fan of American comics like "Spider Man" and "X-Men." When the businessman says that he has not had any experience with comics or comic-related culture, his coworker scoffs and says, "America is wasted on you."

I'm offering this little hypothetical story and asking the reader to pause and consider their impression of the Japanese coworker's attitude toward his colleague who is residing in the U.S. Now, I'd like to ask you to replace a few of the details. Instead of "Japanese businessman", substitute "Orchid6" and instead of "football", think "sumo". Finally, instead of Japanese coworker, put in "fellow American blogger" and for "Spider Man and X-Men", sub in Japanese anime and manga. 

When I was living in Japan, I had zero interest in Japanese comics. When I was in my late 30's, I was told that the way in which I did not partake of this one particular aspect of Japanese culture meant that "Japan (was) wasted on you". Yes, because if an adult doesn't embrace just that niche of interest that another adult does, he or she is missing a very important boat.

The snarky attitude of a geeky American was not enough to incite any interest in Japanese comics for me, but a talk with a student who I respected and liked was. A former student, a nurse, said that she borrowed and read the "One Piece" comics that one of her friends collected. At first, she thought they would be childish, but she got hooked. The fact that it involves, at least in theory, pirates, didn't hurt. So, I went online and watched some of the available "One Piece" cartoons that were based on the comic books.

The truth is that I hated it. I found the whole thing grating and relatively incoherent. I'm sure that there's something in it for people who aren't me, but it just didn't do anything for me. That being said, "One Piece" is incredibly popular in Japan and "goods" related to the series are everywhere. The fact that UHA would make a candy themed after it is no surprise. The surprise would be that they could afford the licensing fee.

Before I get any further, I should note that this little bag of interest came to me courtesy of Candy Japan. I reviewed their service previously, and they send out two "surprise" packages per month for a subscription fee of $25. They put as much into a standard Japanese envelope as can fit and they had to make a good effort to cram this in there without mangling it (and a very good job they did of it), because the bag is actually 1/3 bigger than the envelope. I have to give them credit for living up to the "fitting" into the envelope promise which is a part of their service as well as offering something colorful and intriguing. 

To appeal to "One Piece" fans, this packet has various characters depicted on the packages of the "puccho" candy as well as a foil-wrapped sticker. My sticker depicts the "Roronoa.Zoro" character and looks pretty much the same as the packet design of the candy with his image. I believe that there are 9 sticker designs that mirror the packets plus a "surprise" one, but I may be misunderstanding the description on the front. Of course, you have no way of knowing what the sticker will be, which would encourage you to buy many more of these to collect them all.

Incidentally, Candy Japan includes a non-food surprise with most of their packages. My guess is that the inclusion of a sticker with this is a substitute for an additional item this time. That's fair enough, especially given how relatively cramped the package was getting this resealable plastic bag of candy (which is really a nifty little Japanese thing in and of itself - you could reuse it if you were careful with how you opened it - and I was).

The candy itself is a type that I've seen many times, but never bought. "Puccho" is a taffy-like candy with little bits of other things in it, usually gummy. There are two flavors in this bag - lime soda and muscat. I didn't pay exquisite attention, but I think that the muscat are in the blue wrappers and the lime in the green. There are twelve candies in all and appear to be six of each flavor.

Lime soda: Just out of the package, this was a bit hard to chew. There seemed to be a few gummies crammed inside, but once it's in your mouth, you can't distinguish between the taffy and the interior filling. After it warmed up a bit in my, it was much more pliable and enjoyable to chew. It releases a nice, citrus-like burst of lime that is perhaps just a bit too well-tempered by sweetness, but only after you've been chewing for awhile and the taffy exterior has released more of its sugary load. This was a bright, eye-opening option, though it left a lingering sweetness in my mouth that I needed to wash away with a drink.

Muscat: This was also crammed with gummies, but they were smashed up a bit more such that they formed a chewy fruit-leather-sandwich layer. The muscat (a kind of grape) flavor was quite good and had the same sort of flavor that I associate with the large, purple grapes that are sold in Japan. I liked this better than the lime soda and would have been happy with a whole bag of these. It had a non-alcoholic wine feel to it because of the richness of the grape flavor. It also seemed to carry the muscat flavor longer and have less cloying sweetness to pull it along. However, by the end, I still had the sense on my tongue that I'd been sucking on a grape lollipop for awhile.

Some candy is what you want to eat all of the time until the bag is gone. Some is for when you're in the right mood for it. This is definitely a "mood" thing, as many fruit and taffy candies often are. There's nothing wrong with this, but I think the greatest value is in the very colorful novelty of the packaging, the little toy surprise, and the wrappers. You don't even have to be a "One Piece" fan to like the designs, but it probably would make you feel that getting this for half of your subscription price was even more worthwhile.

If I were rating the overall appeal of the package, I'd be giving this a "happy" rating. However, I'm only rating the candy itself. I'll be finishing the candy slowly over time, but I don't think I'd buy "puccho" again. I will, however, be saving the sticker and plastic bag that these came in just for fun. They're nifty little souvenir-type things from Japan.

Okashina Mizuame

This is the second of two items that I received from Candy Japan (gratis) for review. This candy is designed as much if not more for the entertainment value as for the "candy" itself. In fact, I'm not sure if you can call plastic packets of good "candy", but I guess that it is sweet so that makes it fall within the general category of "candy".

When I was a kid, we didn't have too many elaborately prepared packets of candy that were about the process. The closest we had was an Easy-bake oven. You mix packets of cake mix with water, stir, and cook under a light bulb in a tiny tin cake "pan". The cakes never tasted very good, but it was just cool that you could make them yourself.

Unfortunately, I'm not a child anymore. Actually, that's fortunate because I hated being a kid. You have to go to school and it's more of a pain in the ass than going to work. At least work is over when the day is done. You don't have to go home and study for tests or do homework afterwards. You also get money for working and nobody rewards you for school. You also have to do what you're told and the value of what you're being asked to do is always greater for the person in authority than it is for you. At any rate, since I'm not longer a young one, the delight I take in making my own candy is not particularly great.

Candy Japan kindly provides a video for how to deal with the packets of syrup that are included, though it's actually a pretty straightforward process. Nonetheless, it's pretty good service for them to go to the effort of explaining things. It's only simple when you already know how it is done. Prior to that, it can be a mystery.

The resulting candy is a mixture of three fruit flavors of syrup including ramune (lemon-lime soda), lemon, and strawberry. The result is an extremely sticky mass of fruit-flavored stuff that you scoop up with a spoon. It tastes like a melted fruity lollipop and is not particularly tasty. If you do decide to slurp up the whole tray, it'll set you back 83 calories, and probably give you a cavity.

In terms of the candy, this is definitely one for the short-pants set and not for an oldster like me. The delight is in the making and the gooey nature, not in the taste or texture. My hat goes off though to Candy Japan for their service. They send you an e-mail with a link to the video as well as give a brief explanation. Their explanation is:

"Strange viscous liquid sugar candy. This is one of those DIY items that you mix to make. "As you mix, the taste changes!!""

I think that means that you can taste the syrup at each stage to get three taste experiences out of it. That's not a bad idea, but I didn't do it. I'm sure that the flavors would change, but I don't think that'd improve my enthusiasm for the candy.

Candy Japan (service reviews) and Fueramune Blue Soda Whistle Candy

My package from Candy Japan. Note the pretty flower tape at the top.

Today's review candy, Fueramune Blue Soda Whistle Candy, comes courtesy of "Candy Japan". They contacted me and asked if I'd like to receive a few samples and, of course, I said I absolutely would. I'm not the sort of person to turn down free food, especially not free Japanese candy!

Before I get to reviewing the first of the two candies that I was sent, I would like to talk a little about "Candy Japan". They are a subscription service that sends "mystery sweets" twice a  month for a fee of $25. This service includes as much candy as will fit in a standard Japanese envelope sent directly from Japan by SAL. "SAL", for those less well-versed in postal jargon than me, is "sea air land". It's a "between" option for sending packages which is not nearly as slow as seamail, but not quite as fast as air. My experience with it was that it takes about 2-3 weeks and is usually closer to two if you're on the West coast of the United States.

The service includes a nice bonus of mailings that tell you about the product that you're getting in English so that you aren't dealing with a mystery. In fact, they did the work for me in terms of researching the items I was sent. With the Fueramune Blue Soda Whistle Candy, they offered the followed information along with this photo:

Also known as Coris whistle candy, these are soda flavored whistles which you can also eat after you are done whistling with them. There is a small random plastic toy included as well. "Ramune" flavor comes from the popular soda pops sold in Japanese festivals.

This is a kid's candy which I never tried while in Japan and I noted that it also included a little box at the bottom which had a propeller in it. I think that the idea is that you buy multiple packages of the candy and each may include a different plastic part. When it is assembled, it is likely an airplane like the one illustrated on the box.

The candy itself is very interesting because it is a pressed powder candy which becomes soft and dissolves very quickly in your mouth. It seems like an enormous disc, but it becomes a burst of "ramune" (lemon lime soda) flavor that is brightly sweet, but not cloying, in very short order. And yes, the disks do function as a kind of low-rent whistle if you blow through one of the holes. The sound they make isn't loud enough to be annoying, but is close enough to fulfill the promise of a "whistle". I loved the textural elements and the way the flavor just lets loose in my mouth, though I wished that each disc had lasted a little longer before melting away in my mouth.

The company that makes the candy, Coris, has a variety of children's candies including this and the next item from Candy Japan that I'll be reviewing on Monday. The Fueramune is one of their best and longest selling products since their start in the late 1940's. They specialize in fruit and ramune candies and tend to focus more on options which will not melt in the heat of summer like gum, pressed powder candies, taffy-style candies (chews), and gummies. It makes sense that Candy Japan would choose offerings from Coris at this time because the summer in Japan has been pretty brutal. They aren't going to want to send anything which will be likely to melt in transit.

I'd definitely buy this type of candy again if I were in the mood. It's a very "homey" feeling candy for someone who has lived in Japan for quite awhile and I don't think there is anything quite like it being sold in America (though I could be wrong as I'm not up on American kid's candies).

In terms of Candy Japan's service, they  have a very professional way of managing their subscriptions and I love the way they send out packages twice a month. Unlike some other services, they are sending directly from Japan so you are guaranteed to get something which comes straight from the source. You have no choice about what items you receive, but part of the point of it is that you're going to be surprised and try new things rather than choose from within your personal comfort zone. The cost for two mailings per month is $25, and that value includes the cost of the product as well as the shipping, handling, and management of the service.

As I've said before, I did not do this sort of thing from Japan despite the fact that many people asked me about doing it because I see it as a very low margin business given the time and effort involved. Readers will have to consider the value of such a service based on their own tastes, wishes, and desire to have something truly unique in their mailbox a couple of times a month. As someone who used to live for what showed up in the post for quite a few years of my life, I can speak to the unparalleled delights of such surprises once you get accustomed to the idea of having them.