Coris Kinako Lumps

A lot of the snacks I review are variations on familiar food themes. Even something as uniquely Asian as a bean cake can be roughly approximated as a cake full of mashed beans and the reader can grasp the idea. Occasionally, I come across something which defies comparison, and then I have to wrack my fevered brain for a way to describe it that successfully conveys what it is. Of course, I could just give up and compare it to something vaguely similar and spare my neurons the overtime work.

These kinako dama ("lumps") candies, produced by a company called Coris that specializes in cheap kid's snacks, are definitely a horse of a different color. Coris is a relatively small company and you see their flavored lozenges that resemble a chalky lifesaver in the kiddy sections of many convenience stores and markets. This kinako snack was a new find for me so I picked it up when I saw the little packet for a mere 20 yen (24 cents) at Lawson 100. I also can't resist anything as elegantly named as "lumps".  The little bag holds 3 marble-size candies and each candy is 20 calories.

Each little ball is soft enough that you can squish it with your finger, but firm enough not to easily lose it's shape or be bruised. When you bite into it, it's sweet and has a relatively powerful kinako flavor, but is not overwhelming. The texture can be best likened to a grainy taffy without the stringy, chewy, sugary parts. It's like thick Play Dough in some ways.

The web site for these stresses that they are made with flour, and I think that these are really pretty much flour, sugar and kinako (toasted soy flour). They literally are little dough balls. While I enjoyed the taste of these quite a lot, and they certainly aren't unpleasant in any way, the overall texture just didn't do much for me. They are squishy enough to be like cookie dough, and not firm enough to really feel like candy. This is a new product and it'll be interesting to see if it catches on well enough to be around next year at this time. I liked it, but once was enough for me.

Look Italian Dolce

"Look" brand chocolates by Fujiya are something that I largely ignored up until I was given the Baskin Robbins chocolates and found them surprisingly good. In retrospect, I'm not sure why I avoided them, but I think it was because they have the typical Fujiya candies look of pretty much all of their chocolates. That is, a chocolate shell with a creamy filling. I think seeing so many of them with the Fujiya girl's big head and protruding tongue  on a plethora of sweets packages turned me off to anything offered by Fujiya, but I'm softening on the maker whose mascot is a  mutant girl with perpetually dry lips. 

So, instead of waiting for someone to give me this particular release, I forked over my own 100 yen coin ($1.20) for these selection of Italian sweets based chocolates. As with all Look brand chocolates, there are 3 very small pieces (think about half of a bite size) of each of 4 flavors and there is a slightly bittersweet chocolate shell encasing a soft flavored filling. Each candy is 21 calories, but so small that to really get a good sense of the flavors, you need to let it rest on your tongue and melt a bit.

From left: tiramisu, marron cream, espresso, limone

Tiramisu: This was like mild coffee and chocolate, with none of the mascarpone cheese flavor of tiramisu. That doesn't detract from the pleasantness of the flavor, however. I enjoyed this because it didn't carry the sense of acidity that real strong coffee can carry.

Marron cream: This was nice, though it felt more like a well-rounded milk chocolate with a mild coffee-like undertone than a chestnut one. I think the chestnut boosted the chocolate flavor rather than shone through strongly on its own. Still, quite enjoyable and you can detect the chestnut flavoring to some extent.

Espresso cream: This had a much stronger coffee flavor with a real sense of instant coffee powder than the tiramisu one. It is the weakest of the bunch, but not "bad". I was indifferent to it. It wasn't really espresso in that none of the dark-roasted notes came through. If you like Nescafe coffee, then this might float your boat.

Delicia Limone: This was the most distinctive one with some strong, slightly tart lemon flavors, and incredibly tiny bits of cookie in the cream filling to add texture. I usually don't go for lemon and chocolate, but I did like this.

I liked these just fine, but was less "wow'ed" by the combination of flavors than I was with the Baskin Robbins Look chocolates. I think I would have been happier with a whole box of Delicia Limone rather than 3 variations which each really came off a lot like variations on coffee. Still, they are nice textures and flavors, and I enjoyed them. I could see buying another box in the future, but only if there isn't something newer and more interesting to catch my eye.

Tirol Mikan Chocolate

Growing up in the U.S., my taste buds grew accustomed to what a particular flavor "meant" to me.  If I bought some grape candy, it all pretty much tasted like other grape candy. The basic essence of those flavors was similar and I recognized them for what they were based on my experiences.

It wasn't until I came to Japan that I found out that the essence of a particular flavor when it is translated into sweets or snacks isn't necessarily the same to everyone. "Grape" candy in Japan may or may not taste like grape in the U.S. I've certainly found that "cheese" sweets in Japan aren't the same as cheese sweets back home since savory cheeses are used here and only cream cheese tends to be used back home.

I was thinking about the basic essence of flavors because orange candy at home often is a bit different from that here, and this Tirol mikan chocolate actually brought back a greater sense of what I used to have back home than most orange candy in Japan. The main reason for this is that it smelled so intensely orange, like a whiff of a newly opened carton of orange juice concentrate. For the record, fruit juice concentrates aren't sold here so I hadn't smelled anything as strong as that for over two decades.

The soft chocolate outer shell of this candy is rather sweet and lightly orange flavored. It's the the firm gummy candy interior that carries a very intense citrus flavor. It's quite zesty and satisfying compared to many white chocolates because of the citrus bite.

For a mere 20 yen (24 cents) and a one inch square of candy which provides only 54 calories, this is a good investment both in money and potential body fat. I really liked this and would definitely buy it again. I bought mine at Family Mart convenience store, but Tirol chocolates are sold in a wide variety of places in Japan. If you find this one and like orange chocolates, I recommend giving it a try.

Korean Corn Tea (Oksusu-cha)

This blog is called "Japanese Snack Reviews", but it's my blog and I'll cover non-Japanese products on a very infrequent basis if I want to. Also, I'm guessing this is the sort of thing that anyone can pick up in a Korean or Asian grocery store and may be of interest to at least a few of my readers. To make a tenuous connection to Japan though, I will say that, if it weren't for one of my students, I would never have sampled this tea so living here is responsible for this review both in terms of my discovering the existence of corn tea and my having ready access to it (as there is a tiny little Korean goods shop not a minute from my apartment).

The student who told me about this said that she bought it because corn tea is supposed to be good for your skin and overall beauty. I did some research and corn tea is loaded with Vitamin E. It's also supposed to be good for digestion, high blood pressure, and to help those with diabetes for reasons I am unaware of. Only at the end of one article about corn tea and my second big cup of this tea did I learn that strongly brewed corn tea is supposed to be a potent and expedient laxative. I'll get back to you on that particular effect by the end of this review should it prove to be valid.

The import shop I bought this at sold this box of 15 bags for 230 yen ($2.76). At first, I thought this was a tad on the expensive side, but the truth is that I pay similar prices for about 10 bags of flavored teas made by Lipton such as maple, caramel, or mint tea. Lipton, incidentally, is considered more of a "premium brand" (especially the "yellow label" variety) in Japan than it is back home, where I consider it the dusty sweepings off of the tea leaf processing floor.

I only realized after getting the box home and turning it over that this isn't a box with 15 tea bags for 15 cups of tea, but that each bag prepared 2 liters of tea. This makes this much better value, but presents a bit of a pickle for the likes of me. I live with a devout non-tea drinker and putting away two liters by myself is going to take at least 3 days, if not longer. Also, I have no room in my small Japanese refrigerator for lots of drinks of any sort. Finally, I don't even have a 2 liter-size vessel to make the tea in!

Since necessity is the mother of invention, I improvised and made the tea in a pot and then poured it into two 1 liter decanters (which I couldn't fit in my fridge, but never mind). The leaves smell of roasted grain and the prepared tea smells a lot like popcorn. In its default state, it has a hint of Japanese barley tea (mugi-cha) as well as roasted corn flavoring. I think the roasting is what brings on the resemblance to mugi-cha since both oksusu-cha and Japanese barley tea use roasted grains. I didn't take a picture of the brewed tea, but it is a pale gold or deep gold color depending on how long you brew it. It can be drunk either hot or cold (though I marginally preferred it cold).

Plain, this is good, but with a little sweetener or sugar added, I would upgrade it to "great". It is tea, however, and one mustn't expect it to blow ones socks off, but the flavor is really very pleasant and carries a good deal of the essence of roasted corn. I'd definitely buy it again if I could get individual teabags rather than these monster 2-liter-making bags which force me to drink a lot and store a lot. If my refrigerator were less puny (and if I had a 2-liter container), I wouldn't even hesitate to buy these monster size teabags again. And that fast-acting laxative thing? It doesn't seem to be the least bit true, fortunately.

Random Picture 40

All I could think of when this menu arrived in my mailbox was "in Japan, pizza eats you." It looks like something is trying to crawl out of there to get me. I'm not sure if this is meant to scare kids into never wanting to eat pizza again or to make people want to buy pizza, but I know on which side I'd land.