July 2015 Japan Crate

This crate is a bit different from the others in that it is a food crate. It was a 'premium' crate and came with 12 different Japanese snacks for $45 USD. The wife and I had looked at this a couple times and were both really keen to try it out, just once.

The items were:

• Chameleon candy - Hard candies that all start off the same colour (and flavour) but change after sucking for a little while. Each only changes once and the flavours were pretty nice.
• Potekoro cubes - A bit like little croutons, with a subtle black pepper flavour. I would quite happily have them again, could have used a bigger pack really.
• Chu grape jelly - Its jelly in a plastic tube, jelly on the go! Nothing spectacular or different but it would be a convenient snack.
• Maken gummy - A single gummy sweet in a hand shape of either paper, scissors or rock. Tasty but not unlike a large gummy bear.
• Animal drawing sherbet DIY - A DIY candy pack, we haven't had time to try this one yet. Not exactly an on-the-go snack, needs a freezer. The DIY concept would be fun to do with the kids though.
• Lifeguard paste - 'Lifeguard' is a drink in Japan, this is a thick paste of the same flavour. Was quite nice if a bit difficult to get out of the package.
• Adzuki mizu yokan - A red bean snack. Neither of us liked this one.
• Choco bar Z kinako - A wafer stick coated in soy chocolate. This was quite nice, a bit like a churro covered in a blend of peanut butter and chocolate.
• Kids beer - This drink tastes a lot like creaming soda but looks like beer, yellowy-brown with a foam head. Too sweet for me but the wife liked it.
• Corn potage chips - These corn puffs are like munchos but in sweetcorn soup flavour. These were the favorite item in the box, everyone who tried one couldn't place the flavour at first. It does actually taste a lot like corn soup though, unlike 'chicken chips' for example.
• Kajiri chew - Cola taffy wrapped around lemon taffy. Nice but not a strong flavour.
• Sour lemon gum - Not as sour as the pack claims but more so than your average sour candy. I'm not a fan of gum myself but the flavour lasted a long time so it wasn't so bad.

There were some very nice snacks in this crate but not many were 'out there' like we were expecting. Better than american candy but not too dissimilar than our own. Only one we didn't like which wasn't too bad. Overall we were pretty happy with this crate. Definitely worth a try if you are curious but this isn't an awesome value deal, equivalent local items would cost you around $2-3 each, these cost on average $6 each. I will definitely be having a look at the local Asian supermarkets though to see what they have available!