Morinaga Peach Hi-Chew

For some reason, I never realized how many product names sound like sneezes. "Hi-chew" is definitely one of them, but so was "Gatzun". The latter sounds like a more manly expulsion, whereas the former has a more high-pitched feminine feel. Next time you sneeze, try to work one of these two product names into the process. I'm sure it'll make it more enjoyable. Also, there may be some sort of money to be made as a shill for products by sneezing out their names. It's like the whole thing where idiots tattoo company names onto themselves for cash, except, less permanent and quite a bit stupider. Still, I'd sneeze out a product name in a public place for cash, but then I'm currently unemployed and would humiliate myself for food.

Turning to the point of this post, which is not sneezing, but Hi-Chew... I didn't know that this particular product was so pervasive here in the U.S. until I came back. Not only is it on many supermarket shelves, but you can buy big bags of it at Costco. It's not nearly as "exotic" as I imagined from my isolation from Western culture in Tokyo. Still, I guess the flavors that were on offer there were a bit more exciting, though not by a long stretch. Kamu kamu was still essentially"grape", though it did sound like a weird thing.

I found this at Cost Plus for $1.50 quite some time ago. I snapped it up before I realized that I could get better booty at the Daiso Japan and in a fit of "homesickness" for Japan, I bought anything that had even a whiff of Japanese snack culture associated with it. Of course, this is made by Morinaga, and that it was made under license of that very company. Based on my experiences dealing with business people, that means that the Taiwanese factory workers who lovingly watched a machine craft these Hi-Chews while yawning and scratching their behinds were being watched by a Japanese manager.

Most of my readers probably know what Hi-Chew is already, but I'll tell you again anyway (even though I'm not paid by the word). It's like gum mated with a piece of caramel. Each wad will give you about 20 seconds of chew before dissolving into sugary strands onto your teeth. The main benefit of these is that they tend to be very flavorful and this one did not disappointment. It had a nice, almost realistic peach flavor with a slightly perfumey sense to it. I don't think that a slightly floral note which is unnatural is a bad thing necessarily. It worked for me on this, but it may put off people who are sensitive to it and find it "soapy".

I liked this, though I didn't "love" it. Occasionally, I crave fruity candy and I'd certainly find this an attractive option at such times. Mainly, I keep Hi-Chew around for several months and eat it super slowly and this one will certainly do the job nicely until the last few pieces melt into inedible globs that I won't be able to peel off of the wrapping paper.

Variety Friday: Debu Neko Sembei and a Summer Contest

Debu Neko is the "mascot" character of a company called SK Japan which provides prizes for claw games (called UFO Catcher here) in Japan. It is my favorite cute Japanese character and the inspiration for me to get my husband to try UFO Catcher games which neither of us would have touched prior to my passion for this "fatty cat". Recently, SK Japan issued a new prize in their line of debu neko items and it's called "sembei", though it is not real sembei. The overall color, texture, shape, and design of both the foamy cat head and the plastic packet it is offered in mimics sembei. There's also a hard plate of some sort embedded in the head which if you press it will make a sembei-like "snap" sound. Be forewarned that doing that too much will result in the rubber of the cat head starting to tear (as the sample at the game shop made clear). It comes on a loop so you can hook it onto your cell phone or backpack (or just hang it on the wall).

The poorly photographed small booty pile: The debu neko "sembei", Ginbis sesame biscuits and a "white soda" Hi-Chew. I'd love to send more, and frankly, it wouldn't cost much more to buy more items, but the cost of shipping by airmail quickly exceeds the cost of the snacks rather exponentially. 

My husband won a handful of them from one of the easier UFO Catcher games. These aren't the most expensive prizes to produce, so it's no shock that they make it easier to win a handful of them as compared to the larger, more elaborate stuffed toys. I'm going to offer one along with some heat-resistant snacks as a prize in a contest. To enter this contest, all you have to do is leave a comment on this particular blog post telling me how you discovered this blog (Google search, from a comment I left on another blog, through a link on another blog, etc.). If you found me through another blog, please let me know the name of it if you recall. Only comments on this post will be considered when I choose the winner. The winner will be chosen by a random number generator according to the order in which comments are made.

Anyone anywhere can enter (even those in Japan), but I can't guarantee delivery in Central or South America or Africa. My experiences in the past have shown that postal delivery is unreliable in those countries. While I'll surely send the package anywhere in the world, I can't guarantee it's arrival on the other end, especially to countries which I've had some bad experiences with.

This contest will run for two weeks. I'll be posting links back to it and reminders to enter on posts during that time period. Thanks for reading, and I look forward to hearing your comments!

Kamu Kamu Hi-Chew

Taking picture of food isn't exactly an exciting endeavor, but taking pictures of Hi-Chew's lumps of goo is even more boring than usual. This blob of "kamu kamu" stuff looked like a small piece of fatty ham.

Kamu kamu is the Japanized version of camu camu, a bush that bears red fruit and grows in the area of the Amazon river. This is the second in the "world fruit" series of Hi-Chew. Previously, I reviewed the American cherry version. Morinaga's information on Hi-Chew lets us know that the fruit for their candy is from Peru.


Though Wikipedia identifies this as a "berry", the picture on the candy's label shows what looks like grapes. This does smell a bit like grape and tastes like the most intense grapes you have ever eaten. In my opinion, these are like a cross between a grape and a cherry with the sour notes of cherry and the sweetness of grapes.

At 19 calories per candy, these are a pretty nice little sugar-based pick-me-up. They're also cheap since you get 12 candies per pack at an average cost of 100 yen ($1.10). If I were a greater fan of Hi-Chew in general, I'd almost certainly give this a "very happy" rating. These are the tastiest Hi-Chew I've had to date according to my taste buds.

Pom Juice Hi-Chew

My main exposure to the word "pom" comes from watching the Bruces sketch in Monty Python's flying circus where Terry Jones is introduced as a "pommy bastard" to the Australian yokels. Yes, you may conclude that I am a gigantic geek for this, but what would one expect from someone who writes a blog about Japanese junk food?

Given the meaning of this word in England, I wondered why the Japanese have named an orange juice "Pom". The truth is that the romanization of the Japanese characters (ポンジュス) used to be and can be read as "Pon", but it was changed to "Pom" at some point because the name is based on pomelo, a type of citrus fruit. One thing I learned from my research into this candy is that tangelos, which I used to eat in the U.S., are a hybrid of tangerine and pomelo.


At any rate, Pom juice has been around for about 40 years, but I've rarely seen it or drunk it. It's a 100% fruit juice made by a company named Ehime Inryo. This candy is a collaboration between that company and the better-known food producer, Morinaga. My husband found this at "New Days" convenience store for about 100 yen ($1.10). He couldn't recall if this was one of the many New Days exclusives, but I haven't seen it in any other, convenience stores, markets or snack shops.

There are 12 pieces at 19 calories apiece in the package. They smell a lot like children's orange baby aspirin to me, without the medicinal edge. The taste to me was pure tasty, but sweet, orange juice. My husband thought it tasted more like an orange Creamsicle, but I didn't detect any of the vanilla ice cream flavors that he seemed to taste. This had the same texture as all Hi-Chew, like chewing gum that melts away in your mouth.

I thought this was an excellent Hi-Chew, though I'm not a fanatic about these types of candies no matter how good the variety is. I'd definitely eat this again and my husband really liked it so it gets a happy sumo rating despite the fact that I'm unlikely to purchase it for myself again.

Hi-Chew Mystery Pack

Have you ever seen a movie trailer which spoils some of the best mysteries of the movie by revealing some critical plot point or telling you something which would be better not to know? Well, Morinaga obviously subscribes to the same type of thinking. They go to the trouble of making a "mystery pack" and then detail all of the flavors on the back of the bag.

I guess the mystery isn't what the flavors are in general, but which flavor you might get in each packet. The thing is that they also assign "levels" to the candy and give you a clue of what might be in each one which further undermines the mystery. I'm guessing that the lowest level candies are supposed to be easier to identify than the higher level ones.


While I usually take pictures of the open candy, it hardly seemed worth it for these because it's just a bunch of differently colored taffy blobs. The flavors are:

lemon ("Level 1"): very nicely tart with a good lemon scent and flavor; a complete winner on the flavor front, even for someone like me who isn't mad about lemon candies (but certainly not averse to them either). I could guess what this was from the scent alone. The color was light yellow.

lime ("Level 1"): Sharp, tart flavor. I couldn't smell anything when I sniffed it, but my husband said he could and knew it was lime before tasting it.

grape ("Level 2"): this was your normal Kool-aid grape candy flavor. It was classic kid's flavor with perhaps just a tad more verisimilitude to the taste. While I certainly didn't dislike this, the flavor felt a bit cheap. Like the lemon, I easily guessed the flavor by the smell. It was light purple in color.

cantaloupe ("Level 3"): This was very sweet and had only the vaguest hint of melon flavor. It had a very mild perfume-like hint. It wasn't bad, but certainly not a favorite.

pineapple ("Level 4"): This was a pretty interesting candy because it had some of the less sweet notes of real pineapple in it. There's sometimes just a whisper of bitterness in it. This one was a bit of a dead giveaway since pineapple is pictures on the front of the package and it smells a bit like it.

lemon ("level 4"): Smells like lemon and there's a picture of one on the front. That means that they tip you off pretty well. Good lemon flavor which was nicely tart.

In terms of texture, these seemed stickier and harder to chew than the Hi-Chew candies I've reviewed before. They seemed to have more of a taffy or chewy candy element than the disintegrating gum aspects that I've noticed before. Also, they were all one solid color. Most (but not all) of the Hi-Chew I've experienced before were two-toned.

From a Hi-Chew consumers viewpoint, these were tasty. If you want to sample a lot of Hi-Chew flavors in one bag, these would be a good option, but the mystery part is simply silly when they're giving away so much of the game. There are 22 candies in one bag at about 17 calories per candy. Frankly, I'd opt for the rolls with flavors I know I'm going to enjoy rather than buy these again even though they were fine.

Matsuri (Festival) Hi-Chew

There are a lot of things that make a festival a festival in Japan. There are games for kids where they can win balloons and goldfish. There are colorful streamers. Of course, there is food. Cucumbers and wienies on sticks are some of the simpler fare. There's also a lot of disgusting seafood crap, ramune (Japanese soda drinks), rice balls, corn on the cob, dango, Japanese sno-cones (kakigori) and grilled chicken on sticks (yakitori). And, there is usually one vendor carrying cotton candy. (And, for the record, it was a hassle locating and linking in all of those pictures, so I hope you appreciate my efforts!)

Honestly though, cotton candy isn't nearly as a big a deal at festivals in Japan as it is in carnivals in the U.S. That being said, I'm guessing a lot of the other foods you find at festivals wouldn't make for a very good Hi-Chew candy. Incidentally, "cotton candy" in Japanese is "watagashi".


Though the cotton candy on the package is blue, the candy itself is white with little golden brown flecks. The flecks are a hard sugar toffee-style bits. I'm not sure what they have to do with cotton candy, but they make for a strange textural experience. Usual Hi-Chew is like gum that quickly melts away in your mouth. This is like gum with tiny shards of hard candy embedded in it. I sort of liked it, but it spoiled it for my husband. He didn't like the textural incongruity.

The taste is a little like some sort of sugar candy, but cotton candy is really just heated, spun sugar and doesn't carry much of a flavor anyway. The taste is good, but I can't really pin down a particular flavor except for the brown sugary finish of the toffee bits. I think this is also a bit sweeter than the usual Hi-Chew.

I liked this a lot and would definitely buy it again, but it probably won't be around for long. Note that this is a "New Days" only product, so you have to pick it up at one of those convenience stores. I'm not sure that it is going to be everyone's cup of tea. Even Hi-Chew fans might find the departure from the regular texture and fruit flavors to be a problem, but I'd recommend at least giving it a try.

American Cherry Hi-Chew

What is the difference between an American cherry and a Japanese cherry? I'd say about 500 yen (about 5 dollars) per 4 oz. (about 118 grams). Nyuk, nyuk. That may be a lame joke, but it's the painful truth. Japanese cherries are sold in small plastic compacts that hold about 12 cherries for $4 or $5 (between about 400-500 yen). American cherries are sold at Costco in freakishly huge honking plastic boxes for about 1000 yen ($10) for about 4 lbs. (about 2 kg.).

The kind of person who can consume Japanese cherries on a regular basis.

As far as I know, there is no predictable difference in taste between a Japanese cherry and an American one. As was said on Seinfeld, fruit is a gamble and there is always variation in both so there is no uniform difference in sweetness, texture, or acidity that I've discerned. That being said, I'm not wealthy enough to eat Japanese cherries on a regular basis. They are clearly for the monocle and sash-wearing set.

These cherry Hi-chew candies are part of Morinaga's "world fruit" series. The other type is a type of Peruvian cherry called "camucamu". Morinaga is holding a campaign where purchasers of the two Hi-Chew flavors can win some sort of kewpie doll trinket which shows it's oh-so-cute face and hands stuck in some colored plastic balls meant to resemble fruit. If you need more plastic junk in your life, you can send in part of the label and hope for the best.

Yes, it actually looks rather purple rather than red or pinkish as one might expect a cherry-flavored candy to look.

The Hi-Chew itself is pretty much par for the course. The texture is chewy, gum-like and a bit like latex. The chew is long-lasting and flavorful throughout. The flavor is somewhat tart cherry with a good balance of sweetness and cherry bite. To me, it doesn't smell particularly good. It smells a bit chemical-like and reminds me of cherry Kool-aid or Pixie Stix. Fortunately, huffing Hi-Chew isn't really necessary so one can enjoy the candy and ignore the smell.

This is a nice Hi-Chew, and a definite repeater if you're a fan of this type of candy and cherry flavor. I like cherry a lot and would certainly consider this again if I were in the right mood. I'm just not big on the Hi-Chew experience overall.

Pineapple Hi-Chew

There are a great many fans of Hi-Chew out there and I believe the pineapple flavor has been recommended to me by multiple people. And, I do like pineapple, but I'm not a fan of fruit-flavored candies. You wouldn't find me buying something like a Skittles or Starburst in the U.S., and I don't buy Hi-Chew. My husband, however, does so I have found myself in a position to review this oft-enjoyed treat.

Note that there are at least two kinds of pineapple Hi-Chew. This version is an Okinawa version. The stamp design on the package says "Okinawa" in Japanese on it. My guess is that you're supposed to only be buying this as a souvenir when you visit the southern part of Japan, but my husband picked this up in a sweets shop in Tokyo. The other version is "Golden Pineapple", and it's supposed to be sweeter than this version.

Hi-Chew are like a cross between gum and a caramel. They are chewy for awhile then melt away. I found this strange when I tried my first Hi-Chew, but rather liked it this time around. It's like having gum that never loses its flavor or makes your jaw tired.


The pineapple Hi-Chew smells a bit strange to me. There is a pineapple smell in there, but there's something else which I can't identify. It's organic, but ever so slightly unpleasant. The pineapple flavor in this is quite nice. It tastes like the real thing at first then there is some sort of secondary artificial flavor that kicks in. I believe this is the taste of the gum base that makes this a candy rather than a piece of, well, pineapple. The finish seems to send a burst of stronger, tart and acidic pineapple flavor over your tongue.

This was good, and I think someone who is more enamored of fruit flavored candies and the Hi-Chew texture would really love this. For me though, it is definitely the sort of thing I'd have to be in the mood for. I'd certainly buy it again if I had a yen for it (no pun intended).

Honey Lemon Hi-Chew

Hi-Chew is one of the most reviewed snack foods among those who talk about such things. Prior to this post, I was a Hi-Chew virgin. Yes, I've been in Japan for 20 years and never felt compelled to sample one of these. In fact, I can't honestly say that I was compelled this time since my husband bought this for us to try.

This Hi-Chew flavor is somewhat special in that it can only be purchased at "New Days" convenience stores in Tokyo, at least that's what the sign at New Days said. They could be trying to express unfounded Hi-Chew Honey Lemon superiority. That being said, I'm not sure why they'd make such a bold claim if it weren't true. New Days is a chain of stores that is only located in Japan Railway (JR) stations.


If like me, you have never had a Hi-Chew before, it's a soft blob of candy which is like non-sticky taffy. It greatly feels like gum that melts in your mouth as you chew it, which is no surprise considering the name includes "chew". It smells vaguely of honey and gum and oddly had little or no lemon scent.

The taste at first is mostly lemon, and a strong flavor at that, followed by the honey. Both flavors become quite present as you chew. It reminds me of a lemony honey cough drop without the medicine aspects. It's good, but it hurt my teeth as I chewed it. It could be just that my teeth were sensitive at the time, but it rather turned me off to eating more of them. Each candy is 18 calories and there are 12 of them in a pack for about a dollar (99 yen).

These are nice, but the honey lemon pairing is a little too etched in my mind as something that goes with cough drops rather than with candy. These are immensely flavorful and the texture is quite nice, but they're not my cup of tea.