Tirol Cafe de Brasil Chocolates (product information)

The whole World Cup thing is a bandwagon that I am not jumping on. That being said, it's one which people around me seem to be hauling themselves onto. People who have shown no interest whatsoever in soccer are suddenly watching it. I was sitting outside a cafe in Palo Alto several days ago and a bar across the street was emanating yells about goals and I assume missed goals. I may not be interested in it, but I can't avoid it.

Even in Tirol's news, I can't avoid seeing soccer-related things. They're offering a coffee chocolate in a special soccer-themed box (which you can dump all of the chocolates out of and use two candies to play a game with, or so they make it seem with the above photo). The candy uses authentic Brazilian coffee beans (roasted). You can buy these for 32 yen (about 30 cents) at Circle K/Sunkus for the time being, though I don't know how you're supposed to get one of the boxes without buying up a ton of the candies (or if you can have the box at all).

Tirol Sakuramochi Chocolate

You probably don't know this, but the packaging on this candy is attempting to pander to different regional audiences. You also probably don't care, but it's my job to, as the tag line says, "tell you more than you need to know about Japanese junk food." It's not just my blog's motto. It's my lifestyle.

Let's start with what sakuramochi is. It's a Japanese sweet which has red bean paste in the middle and is surrounded in some fashion by rice cake - not the sort of rice cake that Quaker sells in stores which looks like popcorn that has been fused together in some sort of horrible industrial accident and tastes like Styrofoam packing peanuts. No, no. This is Japanese stuff, mochi, which is rice pounded into a stretchy, somewhat taffy-like substance which people can more easily choke to death on (especially old folks).

At any rate, there are two styles of sakuramochi pictured on the lower right of the package. The rolled up one with what looks like a bit of a turd poking out (such elegant prose from my keyboard) is Tokyo- or Kanto-style. The kind that looks like an innocent pink blob of fuzz is Kansai-style. Each has a sakura leaf wrapped around it. Mainly, they have textural and aesthetic differences, or at least I think that is the case because the truth is that I never ate sakuramochi in Japan. I ate plenty of wagashi (Japanese sweets) and lots of mochi and red bean stuff, but never that particular type. So, I'm not going to be checking this candy for verisimilitude to the real thing. I'm guessing that is actually for the best.

This is, obviously, one of the spring releases from Tirol. Well, it's obvious to me because spring is when everything "sakura" pops out of the marketing woodwork in Japan. It's all green tea and sakura now, with great lashings of strawberry thrown in for good measure. It's a thing in Japan. It's similar to how pumpkin flavored everything starts flooding the market in July in anticipation of Halloween in October and how it sticks around until March of the following year because they can't possibly sell a million products in pumpkin flavor in the span of time that encompasses the winter holidays.

At any rate, I didn't know exactly what flavor to expect from this, but the smell caught me by surprise. When I gave it a good whiff, it smelled distinctly of red beans. There really wasn't much else to smell. The first bite into the candy yielded a moderate amount of red beans with some flowery sakura flavor. As I chewed into the little gummy center, the bean flavor asserted itself much more strongly. It tapered off and revealed a fairly sweet taste at the finish that developed the sakura flavor a bit more and made it border on, but not cross over the line into being "perfumey". The final taste left in my mouth was a mixture of both the red bean and sakura.

For a tiny little candy (33 calories, about the volume of a Hershey's kiss), this packs some complexity both in terms of flavors and textures. The chocolate part on the outside is soft and yielding. The gummy is quite chewy, bordering on a little bit too hard to bite into. There are earthy, sweet, and perfume-like elements, but you have to either eat slowly and pay attention or eat more than one to really pick up on the multiple subtle flavors.

This is not the sort of candy that you eat to stuff your pie-hole with sweeties. It's the sort of thing you eat for a unique experience. You pair it with tea, one little package next to your cup, and take the tiniest bite possible and try to discern the mysteries in your mouth. Take a drink of tea and give it another go. Repeat until you're done.

This is a good candy in a way, and a less good candy in another. It's one of those things which you would never find in the U.S. because it's complex and not necessarily easily accessible by most palates. This doesn't make it a bad thing at all, but it does make it something that you absolutely have to either already have a taste for or be in the mood for. I'm glad I bought this, especially at the relatively modest price of $2.19 at Nijiya Japanese market (for an eight-piece bag). However, I would not buy another. Once is enough.

A Plethora of Tirol Choco Releases (product information)

All images come from Tirol.

I can't hit every single new snack every week because there just aren't enough hours in the day, but, when I finally checked Tirol's web site, I felt like I'd seriously fallen down on the job. They've got a little crazy for spring, so I'll get cracking on talking about what is out there.

At the top of this post, there are special bags of dinsaurs depicted in a game called AR3D. I had never heard of this game before, but it is an Android application and Tirol is more than happy to give you at directions for how to play if you're unfamiliar with it. They've also rather graciously posted all 100 of the graphics for you to see so that you know exactly which ones you still need to collect.

For the less game-happy set, they've got some releases that mimic traditional spring flavors and sweets. Sakura mochi, which includes green tea powder, a "mochi" gummi center, sakura (cherry blossom) pink chocolate and a chocolate base should set your inner office lady afire.

For the more conservative set, Tirol has a green tea mochi variety. This also includes a gummi center to mimic the chewy nature of stretchy pounded rice cake with green tea powder and white chocolate.

Finally, lest the traditional sorts feel over-catered to and the kids feel under-served, there's one more new product which seems geared toward the younger set. This is a rice puff chocolate which promises to be both crunchy and light. My experience with these in the past has yielded a fairly sweet chocolate base to cater to the palates of the diminuitive set.

It's clear that after the post-holiday lull, the push is on for spring releases. It'll give everyone something to nosh on while they view the cherry blossoms.

Tirol Doll's Festival Box (product information)

First of all, my apologies for the lateness of this posting. I thought I had already done this post and cued it for this morning (as all posts are set to publish at 8:00 am), but it appears that I spaced out this week. While I doubt many of you were sitting there hitting the refresh button on your browser all day and hoping for this post, I do like to keep my posting regular (much as I like to keep other, more personal things).

The above is an adorable bit of packaging that Tirol is offering in preparation for the doll festival on March 3. The box converts into a display and the chocolates serve as the dolls. The real deal is much more elaborate and expensive. I don't think this is meant to be a substitute, but just a little extra decoration or something that those who are nostalgic might want to set up and smile at before they devour the tiny candies.

Since most of the doll sets, at least I'm told, run up to a thousand dollars (a lot of sets on Rakuten are in the $150-200 range), this would be the cheap way out, but, sadly, not particularly permanent. You couldn't hand these down to your own daughter.

Random Picture #197

When I was still in Japan, I rarely picked up the Tirol variety packs because they sold the same old flavors with one new one in order to encourage people to buy a lot of mundane flavors with one interesting one. Times have not changed. Tirol still follows this marketing scheme and I still won't buy them. Of course, in Japan, these things cost about 1/3 what they do here.

The above variety pack was at Nijiya market for a little under $6 for 27 tiny pieces of chocolate. The old flavors are strawberry jelly, coffee nougat, biscuit, almond, "milk" (like condensed milk), and cookies and cream. The new flavor is "raisin sandwich". Those kinds of cookies are very popular in Japan and actually quite tasty. They're delicate little biscuits that are on the flaky side with a cream and raisin filling. I'd be shocked if the candy in any way resembled the cookie that I so enjoyed in Japan.

Tirol Strawberry Cheese Pie Premium Chocolate (product information)

About two weeks before Christmas, I bought some brie at Costco. It was on sale and it was about as cheap as such things are ever going to get. What is more, Costco usually has better quality for its prices than your average discount joint. The brie I bought was quite good and I enjoyed a small piece of it most days with a little fruit.

Given that fruit and cheese make such a natural pairing, you wouldn't think that I'd be giving this strawberry cheese pie chocolate the stink eye because it shows wedges of savory cheese with images of strawberries. The whole concept of a wedge of Emmantale with strawberries doesn't bother me. The problem is adding copious amounts of sugar and chocolate into the mix. I will never get the concept of sugar and anything other than cream cheese. This is my admitted defect. That being said, if I found this at one of the local Japanese markets, I'd try it. I'm pretty sure I'd dislike it, but I'd take the plunge considering these are generally very cheap and small anyway.

If any of my readers has happened across this monstrosity and ingested it, I'd love to  hear your impressions.  

Tirol Message and Game Chocolates (product information)

All images are from Tirol.

The press on the box of Tirol candy pictured above mentions that it's two weeks until Christmas so you can play this game and enjoy your candy at the same time. While it's not specifically stated, I wonder if the idea is that you can have some holiday fun by playing this game during holiday parties. In Japan, silly little games, like bingo, are not uncommon during the party season at this time of year.

The box itself becomes your game board and you are supposed to use the candy wrappers as part of the pieces (you can see them showing a little car-like illustration with a candy wrapper placed around it). The candy itself isn't really much of an issue. It contains a lot of the standard Tirol flavor types and varieties that are included in most mixes ("Bis", "Milk", etc.).

Besides making a box that can be used as a game, Tirol is going down the path of KitKats and releasing "message" chocolate. Trying to write much of anything on their small packages would seem to be not too dissimilar from trying to create your own candy hearts on Valentine's day. Still, you have to give them credit for trying, or at least for trying to rip off a concept that a more successful candy maker has been using.

Tirol Holiday Assortments (product information)

Images from Tirol.

I think Tirol has to be one of the most representative companies in terms of displaying the Japanese tendency to value appearance over substance. One of their brand selling points if the collectible wrappers on its candies. They even maintain a gallery on their web site of all of the wrappers dating back to 1979 so people can see what they've offered. I admire their artistry, but I'm not so great a fan of the way in which they put the same old candies inside the wrappers on a regular basis.

For Christmas, they're offering up two collections and neither has anything going for it aside from the wrapping. The first (at the top of this post) is a "whole cake" collection which uses the theme of an entire Christmas cake to repackage strawberry shortcake, hotcake, and cranberry cheesecake flavors. Of those three, only the last one hasn't been on offer before (at least it's one I've never encountered).

The second collection is a cup with milk, coffee nougat, and biscuit ("Bis") varieties. All of these are flavors that have been around for ages. The wrapping is pretty, but the flavors aren't much to get excited about. If I see either of these, there's zero chance I'll buy them because there's just not enough novelty in the packages for me to trouble myself. I am curious about the cranberry cheesecake flavor, but not enough to pop for a whole variety pack.

If you'd like a November calendar for your desktop picture/wallpaper, Tirol is offering one here.

Tirol Halloween Box 2013 (product information)

As a former KISS fan, I associate protruding tongues with Gene Simmons. It's not that he's the only one who famously stuck out his (or her) tongue for the camera. There's a famous shot of Albert Einstein doing so which is a popular college poster and, of course, we all now know that Miley Cyrus can't keep her's from lolling out the side her mouth like some unfortunate roadkill.

Whatever the inspiration, Tirol has decided to give this year's Halloween box a tongue that you can pull out. They've made some lovely boxes in the past and, at least graphically, this one looks good as well, but the tongue thing is just gross. The box is supposed to convert into some sort of Halloween party covering that you can put over your head.

There are also four smaller packs of candy which include individual masks that only cover the eyes. All of them have the same types of candy as the boxes of years past. In fact, the little candy wrappers are exactly the same design. Though I am not a big fan of the pumpkin box, I still admire their dedication to design. In fact, I wish I could get a job working in one of their offices and apply my Illustrator skills!

Random Picture #175

For those who don't know, Tirol sells little square chocolates in two styles. One is a "premium", which is a 1 inch/2.54 cm. square that sells for about 20 yen (20 cents) per piece. Those are the more sophisticated versions. The other is a smaller version, about 2/3 the size of the premium one, and is sold in various variety packs. Most of what I get my hands on these days is the small stuff. The easiest way to get them is in long strips of nine. They are often sold in Japanese markets in my area for a little over $2. It's not a bad deal, even though it is double the price for such things in Japan.

The main issue with them is that they always use boring flavors that I've had many times before and put in just one new flavor. In the case of this package (nine candies), three of them are "white cookie" and three are "milk". The new one, which comprises the final three, is lemon cookie. I never want to buy six that I've had before and find okay but not fantastic in order to get one that I would like to try. This method probably works pretty well for Tirol with kids (who I believe are the main market for this), but it isn't flying with this jaded old lady.

Tirol Green Tea Parfait (product announcement)

Over the weekend, I went to a Japanese market called Marukai. This shop is what I consider the best one in my area for two reasons. First of all, they carry more unique products than most of the other ones. Second, their prices are generally lower. That is not to say that they are akin to shopping in downtown Tokyo in either respect, but they're pretty good for not being where the action is.

During my investigation into Marukai's snack aisles, I noticed that green tea, which is always around, has exploded in popularity. Everything had a green tea version. It was insanely boring with all of those green tea chocolates and cookies. The one green tea option that they did not have and that I would have bought is this new Tirol Premium candy. Tirol says that it was released in "early July", so it may be on shelves in Japan already. 

This candy displays the levels of detail that contribute to potential flavor depth which I've come to expect from many Japanese consumer-level chocolates. The cutaway illustration shows two kinds of chocolate, green tea and white, as well as red bean paste and green tea jelly. For something that sells for 20 yen, that's quite a lot of craft work. 

Tirol #1 Strawberry Assortment

I complained a lot about strawberry chocolates in Japan because there were so many of them constantly being put on the market and most of them tasted the same. I'm sure that that has not changed. The thing that has changed is me and my access to such things. It seems a lot less mundane when you're only seeing about 1/6 of what is coming out in Japan and opens the mind to the possibility of such treats being enjoyable. Of course, reality may serve as a teacher of a lesson I should have already learned. The strawberry chocolates are usually the same old formula with very marginal variations, especially from our good friends at Tirol.

I think the main reason to buy these candies is that they look so cool when you line them up.

Nonetheless, when I discovered a variety pack of strawberry candies at Nijiya market for a mere $2.19, I took the plunge. It's not only that it was relatively economical, but that my love-hate relationships with Tirol has grown more affectionate as I've been absent from their offerings for some time. Absence can make the heart grow fonder, or so the saying goes. However, presence may soon make you long for that absence once again.

The three favors in this are all white chocolate based. The main way in which they differ is in regards to the added "twist" flavor (jam, cream, red beans) and the textural element (marshmallow, cookie, gummi). It doesn't require much of their equipment to make such changes since these are all commom ingredients in Tirol's candies.

Funwari Ichigo Jam (fluffy strawberry): The "fluffy" in this is a tiny little slab of marshmallow that is between the sticky dollop of jam and the semisweet chocolate base. This has the best flavor combination with the strongest strawberry flavor and good contrast between the chocolate base and the berry flavor. The marshmallow also lends a certain sweetness, but mainly it's pillowy texture.

Strawberry Shortcake: In the world of Tirol, anything which is "cake" or "cookie" means the same thing. It means that there is going to be a bland little biscuit inside that is surrounded by some sort of flavored chocolate. This always provides a nice crunch and is there for texture only. The chocolate that surrounds this tiny little crackery biscuit is soft and only mildly sweet with a finish that includes a hint of berry tang. There may even be a small hint of cream flavoring, but it's so faint that I may have imagined it.

Starwberry Daifuku: I already reviewed a "premium" version of this, and this one appears to be little different. There's a little hint of strawberry in the white chocolate coating, but more of it appears to be flavorless and slightly tough gummy with a slightly gamey red bean flavor. I knew when I bought this assortment that this would liekly be the "dud" of the mix, but I wasn't going to allow that to dissuade me from trying.

The daifuku is clearly the loser of the lot. I actually like the jam version a fair bit and am good with the shortcake one as well, mainly because I'm a sucker for crispy additions to candy. On the whole, however, with 1/3 of the mix not being to my liking, I don't think this is on I'd go for again.

Iyokan Tirol Chocolate (product announcement)

Several months ago, I visited my father-in-law and he showed me a couple of oranges which he said he was going to toss out because they tasted like grapefruit to him. I looked at them, and they looked and sounded like iyokan. That's an orange in Japan which is slightly sour, but still sweeter than a grapefruit. It turned out that those were Mineola oranges, which aren't the same as iyokan, but are probably second cousins to one another on the taste scale.

Tirol has decided that iyokan, which is the second most widely produced citrus fruit in Japan after mikan (small Japanese oranges which are similar to Clementines), is a good choice for one of their chocolates. Frankly, I concur, and I hope to locate a bag of these beauties at one of the local Japanese markets in the not too distant future.

There are two types of iyokan chocolates in the bag. One is a cookie variety, which I'm sure just has Tirol's trademark bland crispy little biscuit with some orange sauce on it. The other is a marshmallow with orange sauce over it. Even though this is white chocolate, the bitter notes of iyokan show potential for off-setting the cloying nature of it.

Tirol Black Coffee and Bear Chocolate (product info.)

Tirol is turning into the king (or queen, if we want to not be gender biases here) of cooperative endeavors with other manufacturers. For a company that sells chocolates for 40 yen (about 40 cents) each as their signature product, this feels weird. It's like the people who make RC Cola or Mallow Cups engaging in joint ventures with Starbucks or Pillsbury. And I realize that many of my readers aren't American, nearly 50 years old, and familiar with old-fashioned and regional products. Just think of whatever dinky small-time product you grew up with starting to penetrate multiple markets by making new and marginally related food-stuffs with bigger name businesses.

The concept of this coffee is rather cute, though not exactly unique. The coffee is just cold black coffee, but it's supposedly designed to be better when enjoyed with a Tirol chocolate. If you don't want to buy a separate chocolate, they have you covered because they put one under the lid (look carefully at the picture above and you'll see a square of "Milk" chocolate under it. The types of candy vary. I've seen some with almond chocolates under them, too. This is being sold at Family Mart for 165 yen ($1.65). My guess is that this is all novelty value over quality, but I can't deny it's a cute concept.

Speaking of cute, Tirol is also released a new chocolate called "Tirol Kuma" (bear). It's condensed milk chocolate with freeze-dried red beans, fruit-flavored jelly, and dried pineapple. It sounds dreadful, to be honest, but if I find one at an Asian market, I'll probably buy it.

Cafe Tirol Lemon Tea and Coffee Jelly assortment

My husband is not a very visually oriented person. In fact, I'll not infrequently point out something design or art-oriented and he'll say he did not notice. However, after I bought this, he picked the bag up and remarked that it was really designed well. We both thought it brought to mind two very famous coffee shops without going so far as to infringe on their copyrights. I thought of Starbucks because of the color scheme and he thought of Tully's because of the stripes. They did a good job of evoking the coffee shop experience while still avoiding being sued. 

In Japan, I imagine this sells for around 150 yen ($1.50) as it is the regular small chocolates rather than premium ones. It's still listed on Tirol's web site, but they don't offer prices for this. I paid $2.19 for it at Nijiya. The only way I could find to buy them online was via eBay for obscene prices ($7.49 and $4.00). Unfortunately, Candysan, which tends to offer some of the better prices on such things, doesn't carry Tirol chocolates of any kind. 

Even the little packages are nicely designed!

The lemon tea chocolate is an interesting blend of lemon and tea with a strong bitter finish. I'm not sure if the bitterness is supposed to represent the bitterness of strong tea or the pith of a lemon. This is not a bad thing, necessarily, but it comes on as a bit of a shock after the mellow tea and somewhat sweet lemons flavors. Inside is a bland little biscuit which adds a nice textural element and perhaps lightens up the sweetness of the candy in general. I like the cookie being put in the tea candy because it has shades of "afternoon tea" with tea and a biscuit.

The coffee jelly has a very strong coffee flavor coupled with some strong sweetness. The top is white chocolate, which is either supposed to represent whipped cream (likely) or milk (less likely). The thing is that, I had coffee jelly on occasion in Japan and this very much captures the taste of that treat. The jelly candy in the middle is soft and easy to cleave and, like the biscuit in the tea candy, adds some textural interest.

I really liked both of these for their strong flavors and textural variety. Though they aren't the most incredible, mind-blowing chocolates I've ever had, they have both high novelty value and are pleasurable. What I tend to ask of such candy is that they have solid flavor strength without being disgusting or overbearing and decent depth of flavor. These score well on both fronts. If you like coffee and tea, I'd say they're worth a try. The only risk is that the packaging will have you craving a latte or frappucino.

Tirol Pastries at Family Mart

Chocolate bread with "milk" and chocolate filling.  All images from Family Mart's web site.

There are a lot of experiences that I can have in America which mirror those I had in Japan, but one thing I can't have are convenience store (konbini) exclusives. I doubt that such short-lived offerings will ever make the trip to these shores. I can't say that is an enormous disappointment, but I would have tried one of these Tirol shelf-stable pastries that are being sold at Family Mart convenience stores.

Bread with kinako (toasted soy flour) cream and kinako chocolate cream.

Tirol seems to be stepping up the marriage of their chocolate-based concepts to others. For those who don't click on the link, Tirol is know for making little blocks of chocolate with various types of fillings. Their product line tends to be limited to chocolates and generally does not extend to pastries. This is a little like a Snickers or Milky Way pastry, only, you know, with a lot less sugar and a lot more bread.

White chocolate bread with cookie, "milk whipped cream" and cream filling. 

If you look at the illustrations (you can load a larger image if you click and open it in a new tab or window), you can't help but see that the filling sits at the bottom of the hollow spot in the center and doesn't really fill the space. These are clearly the typical "konbini" pastry which are mostly a large bit of bland bread or cake with a proportionally small amount of filling. This fulfills the tastes of Japanese consumers, who prefer their food bland and not terribly sweet. It was the sort of thing that I got used to, but never did much for me. That being said, I would buy the kinako one if I were still living in Tokyo, because I'm that big a sucker for anything kinako and I'd love to compare it to the Tirol kinako candy that I love so much. 

If you've given this a try, please comment and let me know how it lived up (or down) to expectations. 

Tirol Egg Tart Chocolates

While I was walking around a supermarket on December 26th, the day of after Christmas sales, a woman could not get over the fact that Valentine's cards were already on display. Though it does seem a little fast, like they haven't cleared away the corpse of one holiday before putting the warm body of the next in its place, it isn't too terribly shocking. After all, it is next up on the rotation of heavily commercially exploitable holidays in the U.S.

After a visit to this thoroughly normal market, I went on to Nijiya Japanese market to see if they had anything exciting available and came across a bag of Tirol egg tart chocolates. I was surprised to see them because I had recently researched Tirol's current line-up and this particular option was nowhere to be found. Since it was only $2.49 (212 yen) and I do love real egg tarts, I picked it up without looking too carefully at the packaging.

After getting it home and inspecting it more carefully, I noticed that the motif is for Easter. This is rather bizarre for several reasons. First of all, if the Japanese are releasing Easter candy in December, they are way ahead of the game and making a shop which is already stocking Valentine's cards look like amateurs in the game of holiday gun-jumping. Second, Easter has not yet really penetrated Japan as a secular holiday. When I left last year, Baskin Robbins was the only place with a regular option showcasing things like bunnies and colored eggs. I couldn't figure out what the deal was with this candy. It just didn't fit on two fronts.

Nine candies, four package colors, one flavor. Don't let the variation fool you. It's all the same stuff. 

Of course, the Japanese have never needed an excuse to superimpose a Western motif on a place where it does not belong. There is a somewhat famous story told about a nativity scene at a big department store in Tokyo which was absolutely authentic save for the fact that jolly old St. Nick was standing there along with the wise men admiring baby Jesus. A little mix and match adds spice to life, after all, and in Japan, who knows the difference or cares? It's not like Americans don't do it all of the time as well if the way in which Japanese food is prepared here is any indication.

The answer to this little mystery was printed on the back of the bag in the expiration date. I never check such things before I buy them unless they are on sale, but this said it expires in January 2013. The most obvious conclusion is not that this is an early Easter release, but rather a really really old bag of candy. I'm not sure how this happened but I'm guessing that a case of these got lost in the shuffle or put back after it didn't sell somewhere around last March. That being said, I was still in Japan at that time, and I never saw this on the shelves. Trust me, I was looking. Whatever the case may be, I'm guessing this won't be an easy one to find unless you also have access to a Nijiya Japanese market with some pretty old stock or wait for a new re-release to show up at a more appropriate time later this spring in Tokyo. It'll likely be the same candy, but with updated graphics on the packaging.

My efforts to cut it in half for a detailed shot caused it to totally shatter.

As for the candy itself, I didn't have high hopes because this is a "regular" rather than a premium Tirol candy. These tend to have a much higher failure rate on the flavor meter because they are smaller (equivalent volume to a Hershey's Kiss with a thyroid issue) and less sophisticated. It turns out that keeping my expectations low was a good idea. The candy is comprised of three parts: a semi-sweet base (which the explanation claims is milk chocolate, but doesn't taste like it), a crunchy, a biscuit center and a "custard choco" top. Each morsel is only 34 calories, but it's also just two small bites.

The semi-sweet base dominates the candy such that you can't really get a good handle on the "custard" flavor. The crunchy little cookie gives you a nice textural contrast but otherwise doesn't contribute anything. It was only at the end that I got just a hint of the mildly eggy taste of the white chocolate top. All in all, not a bad little chocolate, but utterly unremarkable.

Chances are that I couldn't buy this again even if I were inclined to, but due to the fact that it really doesn't taste like much other than not terribly sweet semi-sweet chocolate (a good thing, to be sure), I can't see any reason to buy it again short of as a freaky Easter gift of outdated Japanese candy.

Tirol Christmas House and Cup (product information)

All images are from Tirol's web site. 

Tis the season to buy disposable Christmas decorations, and Tirol has a real cute one for those who are good with their hands. If you buy one of their boxes with multiple candies, you can assemble it into a two-story house with Christmas tree, fireplace, and Santa sneaking out after leaving huge gift-wrapped chocolates (half the size of your tree) to enjoy on Christmas day.

For the time being, you can watch a video showing you how to manipulate the box on Tirol's web site. Since the video is on the home page, there's every chance it'll vanish shortly after Christmas when it will be replaced. I'm not sure what they'll replace it with, but if it follows a new year's theme, it'll be a tiny apartment in which a family is gathered around the table eating sembei and soba while watching the New Year's song contest. 

The chocolate "presents" are premium versions (larger chocolates with more layers of varied candy) strawberry shortcake, chocolate gateau, and cheesecake flavors. All in all, a pretty uninspiring collection of flavors as the first and last are likely to taste pretty bad if my experiences with such things are telling. I'd be especially frightened of the horribleness of the cheesecake flavor as it's likely to taste of the pungent flavors of Gouda or cheddar rather than cream cheese. 

In addition to this holiday offering, there is a Christmas cup with regular (smaller, less sophisticated chocolates). It's far less inspiring on the flavor front, but contains a lot of "safer" bets like the "biscuit", almond, and coffee chocolates which are part of most mixes which are not premium. The Christmas flavors (shown in the lower left in the picture above) are kinako mochi and a white chocolate version of the standard milk chocolate biscuit (which is just chocolate around a bland little bit of cookie). 

The boxed specialty Tirol options usually show up at Japanese markets in California sooner or later, though this one may not since it has a time limit based on the holiday theme. They're also very overpriced with most boxes of 10 candies costing around $10. Considering such boxes cost 200-300 yen ($2.37-$3.60)  in Japan, this is a pretty hefty mark-up, even for an import. I might buy this in Japan to review the flavors (even though I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like two of them), but I almost certainly wouldn't buy it here at a place like Nijiya. 

It's a little late in the game, but you can get a cute wallpaper with a Christmas illustration for the time being. It'll change as soon as the month ends, but you can grab a new one for the next month when this one goes away.

As a little reminder to readers who may have missed it, or to those who haven't gotten around to entering, I'm offering a box of the current Tokyo regional KitKats (rum raisin) as a contest prize. You can read about it and enter here. The contest ends on Christmas day 2012, so enter early, but only once, please. Also, please remember that comments are moderated so there is a delay between your making the comment and it being posted. Many people are submitting comments two or three times because they are not showing up immediately. Rest assured that your comment will be posted and it is not necessary to submit multiple times. 

Random Picture #135

This is the first Halloween I've spent in America in over two decades, and I find that I miss the limited displays in Japan. Fortunately, my brother-in-law still lives in Tokyo and graciously provided me with some pictures of the Halloween snacks in Japan. All of these pictures are courtesy of him, and his blog, BlogD. 

Tirol has been releasing a Halloween box which is always colorful and adorable. I reviewed one awhile back, and the above is their current offering. The same cute little graphics are used on the box, albeit in a different layout. The box I bought had a little pop-up display on the front. This one seems to have some cat-style mask pieces on the back which will transform you from a cute little girl into a cute little girl wearing a few pieces of cardboard on her face.

This display of Meiji chocolate bars (note that Meiji has adopted the t.s. eliot way of spelling proper nouns) amused me because the pumpkin is wearing an Apollo candy on its head as part of the design. I thought that was a cute bit of product advertising that was quite subtle, though I think it would have worked a little better if they had stacked boxes of Apollo in there instead of plain chocolate bars. 

Tirol Summer Assortment

I'm fully cognizant of the fact that it is no longer summer, and that this bag showing sun, seagulls, and palm trees is incongruous with the cool breezes, dying leaves, and chilly air of autumn. Actually, with climate change, I'm not sure that we actually experience fall in that fashion anymore, but for the sake of argument, I will admit that I'm reviewing this seasonal variety pack rather late in the game. To be fair, I bought it recently at Nijiya market in San Jose, CA (it could not be had at the Mountain View branch) and this selection only recently vanished from Tirol's web site. I can't recall what I paid for it, but I think it was somewhere in the $3 (234 yen) range.

This was the sort of thing that I would not buy when I was living in Japan because it includes a very common flavor (nuts crunch), a reissue (mango) with one flavor of interest to me (coconut). Under those circumstances, I would not pop for a bag on non-premium Tirol chocolates. For those who don't know or remember, the Tirol brand is offered in two different sizes. One is a smaller square sold in 9 packs and the other is a larger (about 1 inch/2.54 cm.) size which is sold individually. The premium candies larger size means they are generally more sophisticated in construction with multiple layers of fillings. The non-premium ones, such as these, tend to be simpler as it's hard to layer in much in such a tiny presentation. In general, the variety packs lack the flavor depth and potential of the premium candies. 

The strange thing is though that I thought I'd already sampled two out of three of these chocolates, but reviewing my backlog, I see that I had never tried any of them. I guess that's all for the better then. 

One has to wonder why peanuts wear bow ties around the world. Is this level of formality a genetic inclination?

Nuts Crunch:

I should note that I balk at writing "nuts" crunch instead of "nut crunch". The Japanese generally don't accept or follow the conventions in English in which you do not use a plural when a noun modifies another noun. That's why they say "peanuts butter" instead of "peanut butter". However, the words are written on the package in such a way that I can hardly deny them, so don't come around telling me that I've adapted crappy English as a result of my time in Japan. My English may be crappy, but it's all on my shoddy editing skills, not absorbing Japanese-English. 

Now that we've got that straight, let me say that this is a very tasty peanut and chocolate combination. It is crunchy, but I think the reason it tastes better than some others is that the peanuts were fried prior to having their fragments embedded in milk chocolate. There's a rich roasted quality to the nuts which makes the flavor profile better even with an extremely small portion in the candy. Incidentally, I intentionally photographed this chocolate upside-down so that the uneven distribution is easy to see. I loved this, and if I could buy a big bag of these alone, I certainly would.

Mango:

This smelled nicely fruity with a slightly perfume-like edge. The outer white chocolate is very, very sweet and quite soft. The jelly inside is also soft and has a zesty edge to it which helps cut through the sweet outer coating to some extent. The flavor is like a really rich mango puree mixed with a bit of powdered sugar. As a small bite, it's really enjoyable, but I think that one small candy would definitely be the limit. Any more than that at once and it's just going to overwhelm one with sweetness.

Coconut:

The coconut scent on this is quite intoxicating and I was encouraged by the fact that it had a dark chocolate coating. I can't think of any reason why dark chocolate should pair better, but it's possible that years of seeing "Mounds" bars made me believe this was the proper presentation. Unlike the aforementioned bar, the coconut filling in this is not too sweet and the bittersweet chocolate cuts through what sweetness there is for two complimentary flavors. That being said, I ate this in two bites and it seemed rather intensely bittersweet by the end of the second bite. I liked this, but I wouldn't go out of my way to eat a lot of them.

I like the Tirol concept of mixing flavors in small portions and the fact that the flavors are often pronounced with balanced sweetness. I don't like the fact that the chocolate is often quite soft and that was the case with these. I prefer chocolate with a greater snap to it. That being said, as small bites of chocolate to satisfy a craving, I don't think one can go wrong with these. The flavors are strong without being overbearing and you really do feel that one chocolate is "enough."