Japanese snacks Archive | Berries in the Snow

Unboxing: TokyoTreat Box October 2016 | Autumn Flavors and Halloween

17. November 2016

While I’m writing these lines I’m already nibbling some chocolate from this Japanese candy and snack subscription box. I did an unboxing for TokyoTreat Box in the past and here is another one, this time for the TokyoTreat Box October 2016, which was themed “Autumn Flavors and Halloween”!

TokyoTreat is a monthly subscription box service located in Japan and delivering handpicked candies and snacks directly from Japan. The range of their snacks and treats reaches from sweet to savory and the best part is that they have free worldwide shipping for their subscription boxes.

They have differently priced and sized boxes for subscribing. The smallest and also cheapest retails for 14.99 US $ and contains 5-7 full-sized Japanese candies and snacks. The medium (called regular) sized box contains 8-12 full-sized candies and snacks and a DIY Candy Kit for 24.99 US $. Lastly, there is the premium option for 34.99 US $ containing 13-17 candies and snacks , one DIY Candy Kit, 1 drink and one special item, which can be a drink, Gachapon Toy or Premium DIY Kit.

The TokyoTreat box I received is the one from October and it is the Premium box containing all the possible products you would have received (including the products from the small and regular box). Since October is mid of autumn and also the Halloween month the items in this box revolve around these two topics! I will divide the products into the box categories, so you will get a better overview of how the box is structured.

TokyoTreat Box Small

The SmallTokyoTreat Box for October contains 6 different products: Lotte Koala’s March Halloween Edition, Pipo Chocolate, Uncle Pierre’s Strawberry Cream Roll Cake, Hip Hop Berry Soft Candy Stick, O’Zack Hot Carnival Chili Lime Flavor, and Onion Taro. I love the Koala March Biscuits and every time I’m at the Asian super market I will grab one of these. The Halloween edition is most adorable and so cutely designed. If they had been available during Halloween here I would surely have bought a bunch of them for the Halloween Party! While writing this post I’m eating the Pipo Chocolate. These small balls of covered chocolate remind me of m&ms (without nuts) and are nice to eat in-between. The Uncle Pierre’s Strawberry Cream Roll Cake was a perfect desert to bring to work. Cute design and soft and fluffy cake. Despite being a chocolate and biscuit lover I also really liked the O’Zack Hot Carnival Chili Lime Flavor chips. I love the combination of chili and lime generally! Onion Taro are onion flavored corn puffs. I didn’t try them yet, but corn puffs are always popular with everyone. I also didn’t try the Hip Hop Berry Soft Candy Stick yet, but it is a soft candy stick with two flavors. Soda on the outside and berry flavor on the inside. Sounds nice!

TokyoTreat Box Regular

In addition to the products mentioned above the Regular TokyoTreat Box contains four more products: Nyoki Nyoki Corocon, Look Purple sweet Potato and Sweet Chestnut Chocolate, Premium Hi-Chew – Chardonnay White Grape Flavor, and Peppered Soybean Jerky! Nyoki Nyoki Cocoron is a DIY Candy Kit creating three different types of candy with grape, melon or orange taste. You only need to add some water. I didn’t try it yet, but those DIY candies are fun especially with kids. The Look Purple sweet Potato and Sweet Chestnut Chocolate was again my highlight and also a perfect Autumn themed product. these chocolate bites are either filled with a purple sweet potato filling or a chestnut filling and I loved both of them! And most of all I loved the idea of that kind of fillings! I didn’t try the Premium Hi-Chew – Chardonnay White Grape Flavor but they are chewy candies with a center made from Chardonnay Grape Juice. The outside coating is made with the juice of Muscat of Alexandria. I’m looking forward to try these, although grape flavor is usually not my favorite for candies – but Japanese love grape flavored candy! A completely new world for me was the Peppered Soybean Jerky! I tried beef jerky in the past, but I didn’t know that there was actually a vegetarian version for it! These are tasteful, salty and slightly spicy. Thumbs up!

TokyoTreat Box Premium

Last but not least, there were 6 more products and one Sticker for the TokyoTreat Premium Box in addition to all the products above: Tropicana Season’s Best – Mix Fruit Juice, Kinoko No Yama – Chestnut Chocolate Autumn Edition, Wasabi Nori Taro, Bubbly Salty Lemonade Puccho Gummy, Meiji Grape Wine Gums, Halloween Themed Chopsticks, and the TokyoTreat Original Halloween Sticker. The Tropicana Season’s Best – Mix Fruit Juice contains highly seasonal persimmons in addition to apple, pear, peach, grape and oranges. Unfortunately, the Persimmon taste was not really recognizable. For me it tasted like a typical multivitamin juice. I didn’t try the Wasabi Nori Taro and I’m a bit hesitating to do. It is a dried fish snack with wasabi flavoring. I also didn’t try the Bubbly Salty Lemonade Puccho Gummy yet. These lemonade flavored gummy have a pinch of salt added. I liked the Meiji Grape Wine Gums, a soft whine gum with grape flavor. As you can see from the sticker it was a bonus item! My favorite from these 6 prosucts were the Kinoko No Yama – Chestnut Chocolate Autumn Edition! I loved them and they were the first product to be opened and consumed from the whole box. Loved the chestnut taste in the chocolate filling and love the shape…tiny mushrooms, so adorable! Additionally to the sweets there were Halloween themed Chopsticks included and a Sticker from TokyoTreat! Really a lovely idea!

All in all they made a good themed box which fits perfectly into Autumn and Halloween mood. I loved that the box included chestnut flavors for example. I’m a sucker for chocolate and biscuits, so the Koala March and the Kinoko No Yama were the first to be eaten!

I love how the TokyoTreat Box October 2016 fits into its Autumn and Halloween theme. The products were also well balanced between sweet and savory. It is also super nice to have three sizes of the box to select. Of Course, if your taste is not open to everything food subscription boxes are not really the best option, but if you are curious for Japan’s typical snacks I can recommend this box. Ah, you can also check out my giveaway here, by the way.

If you are interested in TokyoTreat visit their webpage, their instagram, or their facebook page.

What is your impression of the TokyoTreat subscription box and the products for October?

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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://tokyotreat.com which doesn’t influence me in providing my honest opinion on the products.

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asian sweets food Japan Crate PR Sample

Unboxing: Japan Crate December 2015

12. January 2016

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.

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