Reviewed by
Mary
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 (£11.41) 8 full-size snacksRegular: $24.99 (£19.03) 13 full-size snacks plus 1 WagashiPremium: $34.99 (£26.64) 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. Japanese candy is frequently tied in with various cartoon characters, so its quite common to see snacks featuring various familiar characters.
Look at their lovely bright shipping box!
Tight on top is their menu booklet. It contains a list of items, plus some other fun and interesting information.
There’s also instructions for this month’s DIY candy kit.
I see snacks!
Let’s look at the Dagashi bag first.
These are five randomly selected dagashi snacks. Dagashi are a bit like pocket money or penny sweets.
The package always includes an Umaibo stick (my favorite).
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.
Yaokin Okin Ramen Snack: Little crunchy ramen bites in Chicken Noodle flavour.
Grape Gummy
Umaibo: Sugar Rusk flavour.
The guy on the front of this bar of Crunky Chocolate in limited edition Cookies ‘n’ Cream flavour is One Punch Man. As you might have guessed, he can knock out opponents with one punch.
These are Hi-Chew Premium Red Grape gummies. I always associate grape flavour with the United States, but it’s pretty popular in Japan too. These are highly flavoured and very ‘grape-y’. Apparently 98% of the grape juice used in these gummies is from Italian Sauvignon grapes.
These Calbee Satsumaimon snacks are sweet potato chips with a cream cheese flavour. I love sweet potato chips, and the cream cheese flavour adds a nice, very slightly sour flavour that complements the sweet potato nicely.
This month’s Wagashi (traditional Japanese) snack is Kinako Mochi Crackers. Mochi are rice crackers, and these ones are coated in roasted soy flour, sugar, and cinnamon. I’ve never had a sweet rice cracker before, but these go very nicely with a cup of tea!
I first thought these were regular pretzel sticks, but they are actually sweet. Toppo x Chihayafuru Fruit Tart are a limited edition flavour, and the packaging is inspired by the popular manga Chihayafuru.
Hello Kitty! These strawberry-coated pretzels feature everyone’s favourite kitty. There was also the option of Rilakkuma in Honey Roasted flavour, but I’m glad we got the strawberry ones!
The most famous Pokemon, Pikachu, features on these Ramune candies. They have a combination of three flavours in one candy: suck the candy for strawberry to melon flavour, or chew it to get a watermelon flavour. Yes, it really works.
Jagabee Yuzu Salt are little crunchy potato snacks with a subtle citrus flavour. It sounds strange, as these are savory, but they’re delicious. And crunchy.
More Hello Kitty on these Koume Hello Kitty Ramune candies. Koume is a sour plum franchise, and these little candies are fizzy apple soda and sour plum flavour. They are also heart-shaped for extra cuteness.
Every Premium box contains a drink, and this month’s is a Doraemon Jenki Jelly Drink. You might recognize Doraemon from the Umaibo packaging, and this also features his cute sister, Dorami. This drink is grape flavoured, and can be served chilled or frozen.
This month’s DIY candy kit is Odanhoyasan DIY kit. Instructions are provided in the menu booklet, but with this kit you can create your own miniature wagashi set.
Chip Star are the Japanese equivalent of Pringles, and this month’s flavour is Shinshu Wasabi. These chips contain both the wasabi powder and paste, and are a lovely spicy crunch!
Finally, the non-food item. This Disney Tsum Tsum flashlight pen is tiny and cute!
There were several different possible options, but this one is lovely.
One of my favourite things about this month’s box is that I can eat every single item! I’m allergic to shellfish, so there have been several snacks in the past I’ve not been able to try, but this has been a shellfish-free zone.
There are three savory snacks in the main box, plus two dagashi. I love savoury as well as sweet, so while I’d love a slightly higher proportion of savory, the mix is pretty good. There is also a satisfying mixture of chewy and crunchy.
Including the flashlight, six out of thirteen of the items were character-based. Because of the premium nature of these snacks, it may not be as easy to find higher-end snacks with popular characters, so I think they did pretty well here. And the variety is always excellent.
I love how there is great 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? Yum!
Value-wise, 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 great fun family box of goodies to share, but would also make a wonderful gift. Or of course just a gift for yourself; you don’t have to share with anyone if you don’t want to!
By Evelyn 
