I promised some more upcoming unboxings! I received this literally heavy japanese candy and snack subscription box mid of December, but due to all the holidays and food I almost didn’t have any time to try the products :D I still didn’t try all of the products which were included in the Japan Crate for December 2015, but still, I wanted to share with you this great subscription box. This post will be picture-heavy, so be warned :D
Japan Crate is a japanese snacks and candy subscription box founded in September 2014. Unlike other subscription boxes Japan Crate tries to design kind of an experience with their boxes. Each box comes with detailed information about the products and with some cultural background in a custom booklet. The booklet also contains the instructions for the DIY candies and a custom in-house manga.
How does a Japan Crate subscription work? You can choose between different type of crates which vary in their price and amount of content. There is a Mini Japan Crate, which contains 4-6 items and has a weight of half a pound. It costs 12 US$ per month. The Original Japan Crate contains 8-10 items, including 1 guaranteed DIY Kit. It has a weight of 1 pound and retails for 25 US$ per month. Last, the is the Premium Japan Crate which contains 12-14 products. You have 1 guaranteed DIY Kit and also it included drinks and not only snacks and candy. Moreover, the Premium Crate contains a surprise item, which can be either a gashapon figure/keychain or special premium DIY Kit or a bag of japanese chips…The Premium Japan Crate retails for 30 US$.
When I received my Premium Japan Crate the first thing I noticed was how heavy it is! This brings me to another point, the shipping costs: If you live in US you are lucky! Shipping is free for all domestic orders! For international orders, it is $10 – $15 depending on the size of the crate. That means, the bigger the crate you choose, the more expensive will the shipping costs be. Nevertheless, despite the shipping costs for international customers it is really nice to see that the amount of products reflects the price you pay for the box.
As I said above, each Japan Crate comes with a custom booklet. You will find an overview for all the products in your crate within this booklet. It is nice to see, that they divided the overview and you can see also what is inside the different sizes of the Japan Crate. Since the subscription plans are either monthly, 3, 6 or 12 months you can decide whether to change to a larger or smaller sized Japan Crate after your subscription plan has ended.
I will start with the items which are part of the Mini Japan Crate for December: Umaibo Sticks in three different flavours, Bad Kid Beer Powder, Awa Mocco Mocco Powder, and Fujiya Lollipop Bag.
The Fujiya Lollipop Bag is a surprisingly large bag of fruity lollipops in different flavours. The flavours included in this bag are: orange, grape, apple, and strawberry. I like lollipops as occasional candy, and this bag would be great for someone with kids. From sweet to savory: The Umaibo Sticks were included in three different flavours, Tonkatsu (pork cutlet), Veggie Salad, and Cheese. The sticks have the consistency of prawn crackers and tastewise something that I would have get used to. I couldn’t eat all of these sticks :D
The Mini Japan Crate also contains two powder drinks, the Bad Kid Beer and the Awa Moco Moco. The Bad Kid Beer is not actual beer, but a powder which creates a creamy grape soda when mixed with water. It will leave a tingling sensation while drinking it. In a similar way the Awa Moco Moco Powder transforms water into a flavoured, fizzy drink. There were three possible flavours for it: Strawberry, Melon, and Banana. My Crate contained the Melon flavoured powder.
The Original Japan Crate included on top of the above products the following products: Cute Totorin Parfait DIY, Pocky Demitasse, BlackBean & Soy Sauce Scones, and Naga-I Sawagumi Ornage.
The Cute Tororin Parfait DIY is the cutest DIY candy I have seen so far! With help of this kit you can create a thick and rich strawberry parfait. The Kit comes with pink candy topping and icing and the cute cup to serve the parfait. The booklet contains the translated ingredients. I didn’t try this Kit yet, because of lack of time, but I will surely post some pictures on instagram if it works :D I was also more than happy about the Pocky Sticks. I love Pocky sticks! Pocky Demitasse is a new Pocky made from high quality seasonal ingredients. These Pockysticks are shorter than the regular ones and coated in dark chocolate. A nice taste and not overly sweet because of the dark chocolate! I already ate all of these! :)
The Black Bean & Soy Sauce Scones were also to my liking! These savory scones make a nice salty snack. They have a crunchy and yet soft texture. The Naga-I Sawagumi Orange whinegum was also a good tasting candy. A lightly sour candy tape with orange taste. One of the products I ate all by myself :D
For the Premium Japan Crate four more items in addition to the ones of the Mini and the Original Crate were included: Hia Shuwa Cola, Celio Lifeguard Drink, Pachishuwa Dynamite Melon Soda, and the bonus item, a Legend of Zelda Figure!
I was surprised to see another large bag full of candy, and these are even in my favorite favorite flavor for candies: cola! I’m a sucker for candy with cola flavors :D and this bag of Hia Shuwa Cola Candies contains three different levels of cola flavoured candy: fizzy, soothing and gummy! One tropical flavored candy is also included in each bag! And there are so many of these candies you can easily share them with others!
The Premium Japan Crate also contains drinks. The drinks of the December Crate are the Celio Lifeguard Drink and the Pachishuwa Dynamite Melon Soda. The Lifeguard drink contains 7+ vitamins and amino acids and contains also honey and royal jelly. I tried this with my boyfriend, but neither of us liked it. It has a very sweet and artificial taste and the color is neon green! It reminded me of energy drinks widely available, and I hate energy drinks! :’D This is not my cup of tea…or drink! That brings me to the second drink, the Pachishuwa Dynamite Melon Drink! I’m not a friend of melon taste and to be honest, this drink makes me also afraid because of the name XD. This classic melon soda can either be frozen or you can drink it straight from the bottle. I think I’m not ready for either versions yet. Maybe I’ll freeze it :D
Last item of the Japan Crate Premium Box for December is the Legend of Zelda Figure included! I was super excited for this one and I of course hoped for Link or Zelda as figure, but my box contained Furuta. He’s cute nevertheless and I really enjoyed the fact that the boxes contained a Zelda figure. One of the 11 possible figures were included in the Japan Crates for December, which go along with the Zelda themed Sugoi crate of December! Oh right!, I forgot to tell you about the Sugoi Crate: Each month one lucky subscriber of the Japan Crate Boxes is selected randomly and wins a box packed with giant candies, japanese gadgets, toys and gaming systems! The Sugoi rate for December for example, contained The Legend of Zelda Link Shield Bag, a wearable Majora’s Mask, Nintendo 3DS XL Majora’s Mask Edition, and so on! It is really a nice idea to have such giveaways for your subscribers!
All in all, I’m really positively surprised by Japan Crate! The boxes have a good value for the price and the products are really versatile. It is a good mixture between savory and sweet snacks and also different kind of products. The only downside is the shipping costs for non-US residents, but other than this I can totally recommend this subscription box if you want a versatile experience for Japanese Candies and Snacks. Japan Crate also launched a new subscription Box, the Dokidoki Crate, which contains a monthly supply of cute items, like toys and plushies and stationary. I will review their first Dokidoki Crate within the next days, too! What is your impression of the Japan Crate Subscription Boxes? Would you like to try these yourself?
Just as a short reminder: All products mentioned and reviewed on this blog are of my personal opinions. This product here was sent to me for reviewing purpose by https://japancrate.com, which doesn’t influence me in providing my honest opinion on the products.
