Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Mister Ito American Soft Uji Matcha Chocolate Chip Cookies (product information)

Image lifted from Candysan's web site. And, no, they did not bribe me to link to them. They just had the biggest picture that I could rip off. 

I couldn't figure out why a brand being named "Mr. Ito" struck me as funny. After all, we have "Mrs. Fields" in the United States, and her cookies were pretty popular until she sold out and they started to be sucky mall fare. Also, just as "Mrs. Fields" and "Mr. Ito" are both real people using their real names, unlike, say "Mrs. Butterworth". So, what's the weirdness? Well, it's the combination of Asian and occidental (Note: I am prohibited from using "oriental" as a pairing with "occidental" because I'm home now and must be politically correct at all times, even if the Japanese use the word "oriental" themselves.) It's not "Ito-san", it's Mr. Ito.

The folks at Mr. Ito are nothing if not international, and that's what compelled me to highlight these cookies as a product. They were released in February 2012, so they're actually a bit long in the tooth. They caught my eye because of the strange irony of a cookie called "American Soft" being sold in a green tea flavor. Further research reveals that the target market for these is 20-50-year-old Japanese ladies. There's very little "American" about them, beyond the half-Westernized name of the company's founder and the chocolate chips.

4 comments:

Murat said...

hey there! great blog. more than i ever need to know about japanese snacks. can you review the balance power bars they sell, the calorie mate, and some japanese donuts? thank you. im sure you see them all the time in the supermarkets and kombinis. id like to read a review written by you on them.

Orchid64 said...

Hi, Murat. I've not seen the Balance Power Bars and I've already reviewed several flavors of Calorie Mate and many donuts. You may want to check my archives for a lot of reviews that are already addressing your question. ;-)

Thanks for reading and for commenting!

Murat said...

oh sorry my bad. i'll check it out, thank you.

Orchid64 said...

No "bad" to it, Murat!

Thanks again for reading!

Shari