Denroku Kaki Pika Ultra Mini

Image from Denroku's web site.

I wonder how many companies out there make variations on what appears to be Japan's most available, if not favorite, sembei (rice cracker). That would be, "kaki no tane" or "persimmon seed" crackers. They seem to be sold everywhere I go, even in mixes at Walmart here in California. Most Japanese markets regularly carry both a "regular" (soy sauce and slightly hot and spicy version) and wasabi. I think of these as the Japanese version of popcorn. It's something tiny that you can cram into your mouth by small handfuls and it provides salt, crunch, and a certain satisfaction to compulsively eat without getting your mouth terribly full.

The problem with this type of thing as well as our venerable popcorn, is that it is too easy to overdo it. It's all so small. I couldn't possibly have eaten that much, could I? Well, yeah, you could, but it doesn't feel like it. The calorie pile up is insidious with kaki no tane, much as it is with M & Ms or other deceptive tiny candies that beckon you to shovel mounds of them into your yob. Denroku has figured out a way to help you take control by putting portions into a tiny little "ultra mini" package. The contents are enough for a small handful. If you want to put away a lot, you'll have to rip open little bag after little bag of them.

As a fan of portion control, I approve of this choice. As a fan of reducing waste, I'm not so happy about it. As someone who lives in a country in which portions are out of control, I'm thinking that recycling can handle the waste and such packaging really does encourage us all to eat less. You can see, I'm clearly torn... over a packet of sembei. I live a complex emotional life, a dumb complex emotional life, but a complex one at that.

The little crackers in kaki no tane mixes come with different degrees of saltiness and heat. These fall more to the salty side and less to the hot. This is not a bad thing. They are very savory with a deep soy sauce flavor, a satisfying crunch, and a generous number of peanuts to provide a balance both in terms of protein and rich fattiness. In fact, this is definitely one of the more balanced mixes of nuts with sembei and that's a good thing. It means they're not going on the cheap, though, if you aren't a fan of peanuts, you might not be especially happy with the distribution. I also believe that these have a better and more developed flavor depth than the Sweetbox version that I reviewed previously.

I received my samples of these kaki pika ultra minis as part of the Skoshbox that I was sent gratis and I'm very pleased that it was a part of it. It's not only that I enjoyed the salty snack itself, and I did, but also that it was a trip down memory lane for me.

Denroku offers some adorable downloadable stationary with their mascot for download for those who want to print out some envelopes (top ones are for New Year's) or note paper for date books.

Meiji Kaki No Tane Almond Crunch

Back home, people seem intent upon sullying the awesome power of chocolate by mixing in all sorts of weirdness with it including chili powder and bacon. As a former fan (in my misspent youth) of hot, salty French fries dipped in cool creamy chocolate milk shakes, I can conceptualize the appeal of mixing savory or spicy elements with chocolate. However, I really don't find the idea of chili in chocolate appealing.

Despite that, I did finally give in and buy these Meiji chocolate-covered almonds. The outside chocolate coating is mixed with crushed spicy rice crackers (kaki no tane). Since chili is sometimes mixed with chocolate, the general concept behind these (heat with sweetness) isn't entirely alien, but still a little off the beaten path.

When I opened the foil packet, I was surprised at how unappetizing the chocolates looked. Meiji makes incredibly good and polished-looking chocolate-covered nuts. They're one of my favorite snacks in Japan and really help you get through a long day at the office when you need an energy boost. These look like something your dog might leave behind after a bout with a corn cob.

The almonds are encased in a thin wafer and then chocolate mixed with crushed spicy rice crackers. If you hold the chocolate on your tongue, you taste a bit of the salty rice flavor of the kaki no tane, but if you just bite into it, you mainly get the almond flavor mixed with chocolate and something odd. If you didn't know what it was, you'd probably be hard-pressed to guess. On the bright side, the almond is crunchy and fried and has a strong flavor. On the not so bright side, the kaki no tane really isn't doing much for this except adding texture and diluting the potency of the usually excellent chocolate and adding a not unpleasant but not really tasty weirdness of the experience.

I've seen these on sale everywhere for quite some time. The retail price is close to 200 yen ($2.46) but I waited for a discounted price (148 yen/$1.82). I don't think they are selling particularly well based on the sale patterns and the volume that remains in shops. This could be because they simply aren't in any way better than the plain chocolate-covered almonds or that they are unappetizing in appearance and Japanese folks are known for valuing how food looks. Either way, though these are far from bad and I'll slowly finish the box, I wouldn't buy them again.

Wasabi Kaki No Tane Sembei

Advertising is an interesting art and science. I used to receive a menu for a Chinese restaurant that featured a dish which looked like a whole baby pig, snout to tail, had been roasted and was going to be served to the customer. That grossed me out so much that I never patronized them.

On bags of wasabi-flavored snacks, you often see a green, gnarled root with what looks like broken, scabbed over pustules on it. These roots have never really drawn me to wasabi products, though after seeing them enough, they haven't really repulsed me either. I guess it's a good indication of how cultural experiences shape your perceptions of what is and is not attractive food-wise.


Given my positive experience with Sweet Box's regular kaki no tane (persimmon seeds) with peanuts sembei, I scooped up this wasabi version at the local 100 yen shop. I figured that if the regular kind was good, a hotter, spicier version certainly couldn't be any worse. These Sweet Box packets of snacks are also great value with 6 packets and decent portion control at 120 calories each.


The first bite of these carries a nice hot hit of wasabi. Subsequent bites lack quite the same power, but there are still notes of the wasbi in there. My tongue must have grown accustomed to the flavor after awhile because the heat became more muted as I neared the end of the packet. It's interesting that my experience with these is the opposite of the regular version. The regular type gets hotter as you eat more. These get mellower as you eat more. I guess they use different types of peppers which affect the tongue differently.

I enjoyed these quite a lot. I'd certainly consider buying them again if I was in the mood for a savory peanut-including snack. I wish there was just a bit more wasbi flavor in them, but after my previous wasabi sembei experience, perhaps I should just be glad that it didn't start to burn the back of my nasal passages.

Kaki No Tane ("Persimmon Seeds" Sembei) with Peanuts

This is another one of those snacks that I have seen for years in Japan and never bothered to buy. A big reason for this is that most of the time kaki no tane (kaki = persimmon, no = of, tane = seed) is sold in fairly large quantities. I'm sure there are small packs around, but I just never went out of my way to find them. This is the sort of snack that people buy for their families to nosh on, perhaps while watching television.

There are many companies that produce these. Mine just happened to be made by a company with no on-line profile named Sweet Box, Inc. (株式会社スイートボックス). I found this at the 99 yen shop and figured that this was a relatively small bag and cheap so it was past time to try this well-known and oft-enjoyed savory snack. These are frequently eaten with beer or other alcoholic beverages and are part of the category of snacks to be eaten with alcohol called otsumami.


The bag is 150 grams and contains 6 packets. Each packet is 120 calories. There are generous amounts of peanuts in each bag and that's what you smell when you open a packet. The sembei doesn't really carry much of a scent.


The little slivers of sembei are slick and shiny. They taste like plain sembei, but carry some heat. The heat isn't present on the first bite, but comes cumulatively and as an aftertaste. The peanuts are blanched so they just carry a nice peanut flavor with no heavy roasted or burnt flavors. The sembei is quite crispy and the entire mix isn't salted. The ingredients include peanuts, rice, starch, soy sauce, sugar, dried bonito extract, hydrolyzed protein, salt, sea tangle extract, seasoning, sorbitol, paprika color, caramel color, and spices extract. I'm guessing their savory nature comes from the soy sauce mainly, but also whatever spices are in the final extract.

These are very good, even for someone who isn't mad about sembei like me. I love the mix of the peanuts with the crispy and very mildly hot little pieces of sembei. Even though this was a very cheap brand made by a no name company, it seems very well-made and fresh tasting. This is a snack I'll definitely pick up again some time, particularly at 16 yen per serving.