Emial Cafe Jelly Coconut Latte – Emial カフェゼリー ココナッツラテ

I used to buy these Emial desserts, consisting of coffee/tea-flavoured jelly in a creamy sauce, a lot, but due to the rather narrow selection of varieties I’d neglected them for a while. However, having recently returned from a holiday to Bali and still in tropical mood, my attention was caught by the newest Sweet Cafe addition: Coconut Latte.

The milky sauce has a light toasted coconut scent and delicious coconut flavour too. The consistency is a little thicker than the usual cream sauce made with dairy and when I first peeled back the lid on the pot the cream had congealed slightly at the surface, as tinned coconut milk has a tendency to do. A quick stir soon blended it back to a smooth consistency.

The jelly chunks have the same texture as those present in previous Emial cafe jellies: firm enough to hold their shape but melting like butter in the mouth. While the flavour is undeniably evocative of coffee, it is closer to the mild, sweetened taste of bottled iced coffee, and lacks the deep, roasted notes and bitterness of the real thing. It seemed as though there was a higher ratio of jelly to sauce than usual, perhaps due to the coconut milk being more concentrated than the typical cream sauce, but this didn’t affect the overall balance of the product.

I thought that coconut milk was a fresh new idea for the Emial range and the release was timed perfectly as the weather is growing warmer and people’s thoughts are beginning to turn to summer. That said, I’m not sure that coconut and coffee works as well as previous combinations in this line, so I probably won’t buy this again.

6/10

Emial Sweet Cafe Coconut Latte

KitKat Big Little Matcha Azuki – KitKat Bigリトル 抹茶あずき

KitKat comes in many forms: standard, chunky, mini, individual fingers… but this is the only incarnation I’ve seen that strays from the traditional rectangular shape and branches into the hugely popular market of single-serving bagged chocolates such as Galbo and Crunky Popjoy. Big Little isn’t new – I tried the Kinako version last year – but it seems to appear suddenly in shops only to disappear again without warning, with a long hiatus before the release of the next variety. I get the feeling that perhaps Nestle is not yet fully committed to the product, and honestly, after considering this latest installment, I can see why.

The eight pieces contained in the packet, each about the size of a piece of cue chalk, are redolent of rich, strong green tea with a hint of sweet red bean, and have that deep olive green colour that I look for in matcha candy. Promising as that may be, I find the appearance rather disappointing. Every face of the cuboids is marked by blemishes and cracks that make them look like something you’d find in a 99p store marked under ‘factory clearance’. While this wouldn’t bother me normally, it just seems so at odds with the standard perfectly formed, cleanly embossed KitKat fingers, that this item feels unrecognisable as a part of the same range.

Never mind, the proof of the pudding is in the eating right? The thick chocolate layer is a little waxy and bland on the surface but creamy once it begins to melt. Milky and mild, the matcha flavour is pleasant, although the chocolate is over-sweetened and a touch sickly. I like that, with the altered chocolate-to-wafer ratio afforded by the new shape (wafer center is larger than usual), the secondary flavour contained in the sandwiched filling is more noticeable than in a typical KitKat. A side-effect of this is that the center is marginally less crisp than usual, being more thickly spread with cream filling. Unfortunately, despite the recognisable deep pink colour of the wafer, the azuki taste is too faint to compete with the sweet chocolate coating and languishes vaguely in the background. This was also the problem with the Azuki Sando KitKats I reviewed a while ago; the wafer center is too slim to allow for the addition of anything coarser than powdered azuki, which just doesn’t deliver on flavour.

I’m not condemning Nestle for trying something different, but the original KitKat fingers look so much more polished and recognisable, and already boast such a diverse range of flavours and sizes, that I just don’t see the need for Big Little, nor where it fits in. I’d still recommend trying it – who knows, maybe it’s the KitKat format you’ve always been waiting for – but I’ll stick to the rectangular bars I know and love.

5/10

KitKat Big Little Matcha Azuki  8pcs  190kcals

Choco Daizu Kinako (kinako-flavoured chocolate soy beans) – チョコ大豆 きな粉

I’m making it my aim at the moment to seek out candies with a decidedly Japanese component: matcha, azuki, satsumaimo…any of the essential elements of Japanese confectionery. Thus, when at Daiso last weekend, I was drawn to this coated soybean snack, which is flavoured with kinako: roasted soybean powder used as a dusting on various traditional wagashi. I’ve never heard of Fukui, who produced this product, but I suspect they are one of the several companies that create cheap and cheerful lines for discount stores. Accordingly, I had no great expectations for this candy.

The fragrant, toasted-smelling beans, approximately the size and shape of small peanuts, are the colour of pale vanilla fudge, with attractively smooth and shiny surfaces. The packet contains a large handful (around 45g). Typical bargain-price ‘chocolate’, the outer coating is rather oily and lacking any hint of real cocoa, providing little more than a soft and sticky-sweet case for the bean within. That said, there is a detectable note of kinako that manages to compete with the sickly chocolate, but it is experienced primarily as a scent rather than a flavour.

The encased soybeans are roasted to crunchy perfection and have a rich, nutty flavour, without the waxiness or oiliness of actual nuts, giving them a cleaner, sharper bite. In spite of the sub-par coating, they are quite satisfying to eat – perfect for munching absently while watching a movie – and will be gone before you know it. While I think a luxury version of this concept, made with high-grade chocolate, could be an indulgent treat, this product for me is simply a cheap snack: it doesn’t rate well as a confection but it fulfills certain cravings in the same way as popcorn or crisps, and is certainly palatable.

5/10

Fukui Choco Daizu Kinako   ￥108

Crunky Matcha – Crunky 抹茶

While traditional bars and blocks are among the less popular forms of chocolate in Japan, Crunky, alongside Meiji Himilk and Ghana, is one of the long-standing fixtures of any candy aisle. Usually made from milk chocolate, Crunky is a lightweight rectangular bar, studded with puffed barley grains, similar to Nestle’s Crunch bar, yet slimmer and thus brittler. With spring having finally arrived (it takes a while for it to reach Hokkaido), supermarkets are awash with matcha and sakura flavoured confections, hence I came across this seasonal item at a large branch of Daiso.

Encased in a thin cardboard box and wrapped in flimsy silver foil, the bar was fresh and in near perfect condition when I opened it. The murky green hue was promising, as, although strong green tea can have a rich emerald tone, typical brews are usually a paler mossy colour. Matcha candy that is a very pale pastel green, while pleasing to the eye, is less likely to deliver on flavour, and will probably taste more like matcha au lait, i.e. extremely milky and sugary. The Lotte logo is embossed into every chunk and the smooth surface has an appealing sheen, with the malt puffs just visible beneath.

Looking at the underside reveals how thoroughly well distributed the grains are throughout the bar. There are a few air holes but not enough to affect the texture. The chocolate has a lovely toasted cereal aroma, like a cup of barley tea, but matcha is not quite detectable in the scent.

There is not as high a concentration of grain here as the illustration on the cardboard sleeve suggests, but there is still enough to provide a nice crisp bite. Every chunk contains plenty of cereal and the barley is light and toasty, not at all stale. It feels fairly solid, by which I mean that despite all the aerated puffs, it still has the dense creaminess of chocolate. The crucial matcha flavour is good – fairly bold – and works very well with the cereal, which really helps to offset the dairy and sugar in the bar and bring out the natural taste of the tea.

I thought this was a good bar, in particular the ratio of chocolate to malt puffs and the green tea flavour. While not as rich a matcha taste as Dars’ Ujimatcha or Meiji’s matcha bar, the flavour was distinctive and pleasant. I don’t think this is my favourite green tea chocolate, but it could be my favourite Crunky.

7/10

Lotte Crunky Matcha  42g   253kcals

Funawa Ankodama – 舟和 あんこ玉

This is more of a summary than a review, but these are just so pretty and photogenic that I really wanted to have them on the blog, if only as eye candy. Based in Asakusa, Tokyo, Funawa is a well established producer of traditional Japanese confections such as sweet potato youkan and the ankodama (bean paste balls) pictured here. I’ve never had the chance to visit the shop myself but can always look forward to receiving Funawa sweets as a souvenir of my husband’s business trips to the capital.

This typical selection box contains nine spherical pieces each coated in a gleaming layer of kanten, a thick gelatinous substance made from agar agar. Effectively separated and protected by the plastic tray, the surfaces of the truffle-sized orbs are so lustrous and smooth that they look more like perspex objets d’art than edibles. The four corner pieces are all simple azuki flavour while the five that form the central cross are (top to bottom, left to right) strawberry, matcha, mikan (mandarin), shiroan (white bean paste) and coffee.

Usually I find that when it comes to introducing additional flavours into anko, the sweet, nutty azuki tends to dominate almost totally, yet Funawa blends the bean flavour perfectly with the other essences: the strawberry is fruity, the green tea lightly herbal, the mikan has good citrus notes and the coffee has a gorgeous heady roasted aroma.

The thin skin of kanten is reminiscent of the aspic used in savoury terrines, though firmer and with a hint of sugariness to it, while the inner anko ball itself is perfectly formed, with no air bubbles or graininess to detract from the rich, smooth consistency (the blemishes visible in the pictured cross-section were made by the knife I sliced them with) Soft yet very dense, one or two pieces can prove unexpectedly filling, and besides you won’t want them to disappear too quickly, as they’re almost as satisfying to look at as to consume.

If you’re in Tokyo and looking a for a sweet treat that people from all over the country are stopping in to buy, then Funawa’s the place to go. Just be sure to drop in early, as, unsurprisingly, the ankodama tend to sell out.