TokyoTreat is a monthly box of Japanese candies and snacks from Tokyo. It is part of the TokyoTreat subscription box group which also includes YumeTwins and nomakenolife.
There are three monthly subscription levels:
Small: $14.99 (£11.71) 8 full-size snacks
Regular: $24.99 (£19.52) 13 full-size snacks plus 1 Wagashi
Premium: $34.99 (£27.33) 18 full-size snacks, 1 DIY candy kit, 1 drink, 1 item, and 1 Wagashi.
There are also three, six, and 12 month subscriptions, which work out more cheaply per month.
This month’s theme is Japanese Characters. It’s pretty common to see cartoon characters on Japanese food packaging.
Many Japanese characters are familiar in the West, and this month’s box highlights some of the most popular!
Their shipping box is large and brightly coloured. It promises yummy things inside.
Oooh, looks exciting!
Right on top is their menu booklet.
The menu is fantastic.
Naturally it contains a list of what’s in the box.
But it also contains a bunch of other fun stuff.
A few examples of Japanese themed restaurants! Little C totally wants to visit all of these.
(OK, so do I.)
This month’s featured snack.
Very importantly, instructions for this month’s DIY candy kit. These are pretty damn essential, because I don’t read Japanese and the picture instructions on the package are sometimes hard to follow.
OK, so let’s have a look inside properly.
So many beautiful bright colours!
First out, the dagashi bag.
Dagashi are like penny sweets or pocket money snacks. Each box contains a mix of four, plus as Umaibo stick.
If you’re a dedicated reader of these reviews you’ll know I LOVE Umaibo. In fact, Umaibo means ‘delicious stick’. They are a thick, crunchy tube-shaped corn snack, and come in a bunch of weird and wonderful flavours.
Anyway, these aren’t listed in the menu, so I’ve scoured Google to tell you exactly what they are.
From left to right:
Daiwa Curry Corn Snacks: A little bag of crunchy corn sticks flavoured with Japanese Curry.
Mochi: Champagne Soda Pop flavour. These are tiny gummy candies meant to resemble mochi, or Japanese rice cakes. I can assure you they taste nothing like actual rice cakes.
Yaokin Okin Ramen Snack: Little crunchy ramen bites in Chicken Noodle flavour.
Grape Gummy: I couldn’t find out what they were called, but the picture made it pretty obvious. The flavour was subsequently confirmed by Little C.
Umaibo Sugar Rusk flavour: Sugar rusks are a slightly odd Japanese snack, and consist of dry bread covered in butter and sugar and baked. You can make them at home or buy them in packages. The Sugar Rusk Flavour Umaibo is nothing fancy, just sweet and crunchy and yummy.
This is One Punch Man Crunky Chocolate Limited Edition Cookies ‘n’ Cream Edition.
Do you know of One Punch Man? He’s kind of a parody superhero who can, unsurprisingly, floor opponents with a single punch.
(If you’d like to know more about this guy click here.)
This reminds me a little of the Hershey’s bar in the same flavour. Except Hershey’s is truly crap chocolate and this is much nicer.
I always think of the United States when I see grape-flavoured things. It’s very popular over there but not at all in the UK. Clearly it’s a big deal in Japan as well. These Hi-Chew Premium Red Grape gummies are seriously grape-y.
Apparently 98% of the grape juice they use is from Italian Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. Well, they don’t quite beat a good glass of Cab Sav, but as gummies go these are pretty damn nice.
These Calbee Satsumaimon Cream Cheese Sweet Potato Chips are a mouthful both literally and figuratively. They are also delicious. I’m a huge fan of sweet potato chips, and the cream cheese flavour adds a lovely tangy sour note.
Every TokyoTreat box contains a wagashi snack. Wagashi are traditional Japanese confections, often served with tea.
I didn’t have any green tea in the house, but these Kinako Mochi Crackers went down nicely with a cup of Teapigs’ Everyday Brew!
They are rice crackers, but sweet ones for a change, coated in roasted soy flour, sugar, and cinnamon.
Another sweet twist on a usually savory item, these are Toppo x Chihayafuru Fruit Tart. They’re pretzel sticks in a limited edition fruit tart flavour.
They are also another character item. The packaging is inspired by the award-winning manga franchise Chihayafuru.
(Hit this link for more info on Chihayafuru.)
Do you like Pocky? While these aren’t the Pocky brand, they are extremely similar. Lovely Hello Kitty Strawberry Pretzels feature everyone’s favourite cute cat!
They are pretzel/biscuit sticks with a yummy creamy strawberry coating. The only problem with them is that there weren’t enough!
These were one of two options; the other was Rilakkuma in Honey Roasted flavour. Well, I’m really glad we got the Hello Kitty ones. Little C and I shared them on a day out, and they were absolutely delicious.
Everyone knows who this is! This little bag contained Pikachu Ramune candies.
The changing flavour was fun. It started out strawberry then changed to melon. Or you could chew them up for a watermelon flavour.
Witchcraft I tell you.
Another savory snack! Jagabee Yuzu Salt are little salty potato sticks. That’s a great start, but these have a subtle citrus flavour from the yuzu fruit.
Citrus and salt? I know it sounds strange.
But they’re delicious. And seems to me they’d be the perfect accompaniment to tequila!
Hello again Hello Kitty! This time she features on these Koume Hello Kitty Ramune candies.
Ramune is Japanese soda pop, and is a very popular type of candy.
Koume is a soup plum franchise, and they’ve got together with Hello Kitty to produce these cute fizzy hearts in apple soda and sour plum flavours.
This month’s featured snack is Chip Star Shinsu Wasabi. Chip Star are very similar to Pringles, but come in way more interesting flavours. These wasabi chips contain wasabi in powder and paste form, and will do an excellent job at clearing your sinuses!
Seriously though, I do like wasabi (though usually with sashimi) and these are spicy and moreish.
Every TokyoTreat Premium box contains a drink. This Doraemon Jenki Jelly Drink features the ridiculously popular character Doraemon, plus his little sister Dorami.
As well as his popular manga series, you might think you recognize Doraemon from Umaibo packaging. It’s not actually the same character, but they are extremely similar. In fact the Umaibo character, Umaemon, is a deliberate pun on Doraemon.
This handy little pouch can be chilled or frozen. Oh, and it’s another grape flavoured item!
Japanese DIY candy kits are amazing. (To take a look at Little C and me making one, click here.)
This one is an Odanhoyasan DIY Candy Kit, and it allows you to create your own miniature wagashi.
This one looks especially creative so I can’t wait to try it out!
(When we do I’ll make sure to post about it, so keep an eye out.)
In every Premium box there is also a non-food item. They’re usually a fun novelty, and I’ve had everything from a pair of chopsticks to a fan.
This month it’s a Disney Tsum Tsum Flashlight Pen.
It’s not quite what you’d want to take camping but it’s very cute.
Guess who got her hands on it immediately.
Yep, Little C.
How can I refuse that face?
Anyway, conclusions.
One reason I’m very happy about this month’s box is that there is nothing containing shellfish! I’m allergic to shellfish, so almost every month I’ve had to give up at least one snack to my husband for his ‘eat at work only’ stash. But this time I get to keep everything! OK, not the flashlight. And I probably do have to share everything else. But still, at least it’s my choice.
Anyway, three of the snacks are savory, plus two of the dagashi. I love savory snacks so the more the merrier for me, but there is still a nice variety.
Lots of chew and crunch. Especially crunch. Crunchy snacks are my favourite.
Including the flashlight, six out of thirteen of the items were character-based. It might have been nice to have a few more, especially as it’s such a specific theme. And there are tons of amazing Japanese characters out there. However I’m not really picky, and the Hello Kitty strawberry sticks were amazing.
One of the best things about this box is that it offers a terrific opportunity to try lots of different flavours that may not always appear in the Western market. You might get wasabi with your sushi in the UK, but on potato chips? Wow!
In terms of value, you’re always going to get the most bang for your buck with the Premium box, especially with the drink and bonus item. Everything in the boxes comes straight from Japan, and is manufactured for the Japanese market. You also get limited and special edition items that will never be imported into the UK.
This is a fantastic box of goodies for the whole family. It would also make a wonderful gift, birthday, Christmas, whatever. You could even use individual items for party bags or stocking stuffers. (I know it’s only August, but Christmas comes around fast!)
Or of course it can simply be a gift to yourself. You don’t have to share with anyone if you don’t want to!
One final word from Little C:
Happy snacking!
A different version of this review first appeared on www.allsubscriptionboxes.co.uk
