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

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.

Doutor White Café Mocha – ドトール 白いカフェモカ

Just a super-quick review of another product that I picked up in my recent ‘saying goodbye to dairy’ phase: Doutor White Café Mocha. This has been around for quite a while now and I’ve always been tempted by the yummy-looking illustration of white chocolate on the cup, but tended to end up choosing candy over coffee.

Given the creamy colour of the cup, I was expecting the drink itself to also be a pale off-white hue, so was surprised when it turned out to be closer to milk tea. Similarly, I imagined the flavour would be extremely sweet and sickly (but in a delicious, white-chocolatey way), yet there was actually a good distinctive roasted coffee flavour. In retrospect I think I had rather overlooked the fact that this is made by Doutor, one of the most popular coffeehouses in Japan, and therefore ought to at least vaguely resemble coffee.

As the name and product design promise, it does taste of white chocolate, with perhaps a hint of light caramel to it. In fact as I drank it I thought it tasted exactly as though a large spoonful of condensed milk had been mixed into an ordinary latte – with wonderful results. What I found most satisfying about this product was the consistency. It’s been quite a while since I drank any kind of iced coffee, but I felt at once as though this was unique. The drink is utterly silky and smooth, yet it has a curious feeling of substance to it. I came across gelatine in the ingredients and I suspect that may be what creates the intriguing balance of creamy viscosity and liquid silkiness.

This has definitely put Doutor on my radar and I’d strongly recommend looking out for this and any other of their products.

8/10

Doutor White Café Mocha    131kcals

Meiji Petit-assort – 明治 プチアソート

Having recently reviewed a Meiji assortment, it seemed appropriate to follow up with this second installment, a further introduction to some of the popular confectionery giant’s most well-known creations. Aimed specifically at young children, Petit-assort is a selection of five matchbox-sized packets of candy which feature cute characters and simple counting/picture spotting puzzles on the back. The varieties included in the selection are, from left to right: Marble (strawberry), Coffeebeat, Choco Baby, Apollo and Marble (milk chocolate). All these products are also available in various other forms, for example, Marble can be purchased in a small tube the size of a Smarties packet, Choco Baby comes in a rectangular plastic container similar to that of Tic-tacs, and Apollo is usually packaged in a larger box, about the size of a pack of aspirin.

All five lines are also to be found in large tubes of the kind that chocolate companies often release around Christmas in England, and there are even novelty jumbo versions too.

But enough about the various packaging options and on with the review, beginning with Marble:

I reviewed the standard milk chocolate Marble previously when writing about Meiji’s eight variety selection pack, so here I’ll only cover the strawberry version. Brightly coloured and with a nice shiny smooth shell, these fragrant morsels look very appealing. They both smell and taste strongly of strawberry milk, though there is a faint hint of acidity somewhere in the background that gives them a genuinely fruity note. The white chocolate centers are a little on the waxy side (as opposed to being creamy) but have a good dairy flavour. I have bought Petit-assort numerous times and I’m pleased to say that there is always a good mixture in the two Marble packets, with usually at least one piece of each colour.

Next, Coffeebeat. This is one of my favourite Meiji lines and without a doubt my favourite item in this assortment. Similar to Marble, Coffeebeat consists of milk chocolate in a crisp sugar shell, but due to their rounder and more compact coffee bean shape they feel denser and there is more resistance to the bite. Furthermore, the coating has a more lustrous finish, so that each tiny piece looks almost look polished. The shell has a refined sugariness to it, yet the chocolate inside, although sweet, is redolent of rich ground coffee. Here sugar and coffee coexist, which is not the case in many such candies, where the mild milkiness of the dairy dilutes the complex coffee notes. That is not to say that they are particularly bitter or acidic; there is just the right blend of coffee in this chocolate.

Following on with Choco Baby, perhaps the most interesting candy in the mix, as I’ve never seen anything like it elsewhere. I’ve always found the shape rather odd, as the sweets resemble the little pellets of pet food I used to give my hamster (both before and after the hamster ate them…), yet the glossy surface and milky cocoa scent are very appetising. Eating Choco Baby is an enjoyable experience, as you can savour two or three grains at a time, or eat a small handful and allow them to coalesce into a sticky, milky-sweet mass. Unlike Marble and Coffeebeat, these candies don’t have an outer shell; the whole piece is made up of the same chocolatey substance, which has a firm, fudgey consistency.

Lastly, Apollo, whose adorable hat-wearing bunny wins the award for cutest mascot. The conical chocolates depicted in the box-art are a vibrant bubblegum pink, whereas in reality the colour is a paler milky pink. The flavour of the strawberry chocolate is like that of the Marble, except that there are no overtones of tartness, making Apollo the sweeter of the two. The milk chocolate base is sugary, with only faint notes of cocoa, and somewhat oily, meaning that the melt is not as silky as it could be. With no hard shell to protect them, the Apollo tend to get the most tarnished, and there are also a few visible air pockets around the seam between the milk and strawberry chocolate, though of course none of this affects the flavour.

I’d say that I prefer this to the other Meiji selection, even though it contains fewer varieties, because some of the biscuit-based snacks in the eight variety pack were somewhat bland and dry, and the mixture was too heavy on milk chocolate. I should state that this is a relatively cheap product and as such is made with accordingly low-cost ingredients, so the chocolate isn’t always great. However, I feel it offers a good range of textures, shapes and flavours to keep things interesting, and has the advantage of being a single-serving pack, which can be an important factor for consumers living alone who don’t want to buy their candy in bulk.

If by any chance you’re put off by the Coffeebeat, as it seems many people have an aversion to coffee chocolates, you can always look out for the individual miniature boxes from Petit-assort, which are sold separately at Daiso, allowing you to pick and choose to suit your tastes.

7/10

Meiji Petit-assort 5pcs  274kcal

Otona mo Chocoball Cafe Mocha – 大人もチョコボール カフェモカ味

I’ve always been a big fan of Morinaga, from their chewy buttery caramel to their indulgent creamy pudding, and I’ve enjoyed Chocoball in the past, including the Shiratma Anmitsu I reviewed previously. Recently Chocoball has branched out from the original colourful, child-oriented boxes to a new line of toned-down grown-up products with flavours to suit a more mature palate. Cafe Mocha is one such item, which is part of the ‘Otona mo Chocoball’ (~Chocoball for adults too) range.

Drawn in by the quirky wrapper illustrations and the promise of mocha and cinnamon, I bought this to have with afternoon coffee.

Initially I was pleased with my choice; the bag contained a generous number of chickpea-sized balls (I’d say between 15 and 20) and emitted a sweet aroma reminiscent of the coffee candy in Revels. The smell was promising, so it was with great anticipation that I took the first bite.

And…it was totally underwhelming. I could barely taste anything. The supposedly mocha-flavoured chocolate is waxy and bland and the biscuit center, mostly hollow, is no more than a crisp puff of air. The fluffy-looking center depicted in the package art is highly deceptive.

I tried allowing these to melt in my mouth in the hope that it would release more flavour, but it was like sucking on plastic, it feels as though the whole ball has been coated with oily, tasteless floor varnish which you have to dissolve to reach the vaguely milky, sweet substance underneath – I don’t think you can call it chocolate.

The dry, crisp biscuit core is equally devoid of flavour; there is not even a hint of malted milk or coffee or vanilla or anything that might perhaps have made Chocoball Cafe Mocha a little more palatable. Cocoa powder, coffee and cinnamon are all listed in the ingredients, but the fact that they place lower than powdered milk, dextrin and lactose is not very encouraging.

I felt cheated that I had used up both money and my daily sugar allowance on this awful product. Only my aversion to wasting food prevented me from simply throwing these straight in the bin and it’s certainly made me wary of sampling any more Chocoball. However, in light of my extensive positive experience of Morinaga products in the past, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and chalk this down to being simply one miss after a long succession of hits. So don’t feel that you should avoid Morinaga, or even Chocoball, just steer well clear of this particular item.

2/10

Otona mo Chocoball Cafe Mocha 32g  172kcal

Three Desserts: Pumpkin Pudding, Pumpkin Cake, Mocha Coffee Jelly – 三つのデザート：パンプキンプリン・パンプキンケーキ・カフェゼリーモカ

Just a quick roundup of some recent treats this time, beginning with the Yukijirushi Megumilk Pumpkin Pudding, pictured above.

This sees the light, fluffy steamed egg puddings get a Halloween makeover with the introduction of a pumpkin flavour and cute festive packaging.

These little 70g pots are almost like tiny souffles, the pudding is like a very wet, fluffy mousse and you can almost hear the faint popping sound of the air being released as it dissolves in your mouth.

I don’t like to use the word ‘eggy’ because it never sounds appetising, but it is certainly different from standard milk-based puddings. I’m not a big fan of mousse and it was a little too spongey for me. I also would have liked a bolder flavour.

According to the packaging these contain Hokkaido pumpkin so it’s possible that they’re not available outside of this my cold northern island home, but perhaps there are several versions that use vegetables grown in other regions. The tiny pots make perfect snacks or light desserts, don’t taste very sugary at all and only contain 96kcals each, so are a fairly guilt-free autumn treat~

6/10

Continuing with the pumpkin theme we have 7-eleven’s Pumpkin Cake:

As you can see, 7-eleven has also produced an attractively packaged seasonal sweet, adding charming spooky designs to the standard gold and clear plastic cake container.

The rich yellow is wonderfully vivid, although perhaps a shade or two paler than actual pumpkin flesh. The label proclaims ‘the natural sweetness of pumpkin’, but this has an undeniable sugariness to it – the delicate sugariness of icing sugar rather than the stronger sweetness of say granulated sugar.

The appearance being similar to Mont Blanc, I was expecting a similarly dense and rich texture to the yellow topping, but it seems to be a flavoured whipped cream rather than a heavy vegetable puree, so it has a very smooth and light consistency.

The internal structure mimics Mont Blanc quite closely: beneath the golden-yellow confection is a layer of fresh cream which surrounds a pureed pumpkin center, and these three creamy layers sit atop a small square of fluffy sponge cake. This was really delicious and just gorgeous to look at, without being as filling as its chestnut equivalent.

8/10

7-elven Pumpkin cake ￥232  223kcals

Straying now from the seasonal thread for the final product, which is Emial Mocha Coffee Jelly:

I’ve tried every Emial Cafe Jelly I’ve come across so far – Caramel, Milk Tea, Coffee – but as soon as I peeled back the lid of the new Mocha version I new it would be my favourite. A lovely rich coffee aroma infused with dark chocolate notes hit me at once and it had a lovely milky cocoa hue (which has been a little washed out in the photograph).

The chocolatey sauce is as silky and thick as double cream, yet without as much fat. There is a pleasantly bitter hint of espresso and unsweetened cocoa that counters the rich dairy elements perfectly. The jelly cubes are solid enough that you can slice through them with a spoon without them disintegrating into a mass of shapeless blobs. There is a mild coffee taste but the jelly acts primarily to provide a substantial texture to act as a base for the creamy sauce.

I really loved the tastes, scents and textures of this and felt that it had the best coffee flavour of all the cafe jelly range. Eating it with a fresh cup of hot coffee was a like a little luxury, so I’m going to go ahead and give it:

9/10

(!)

Emial Cafe Jelly Mocha  247kcal

Coffee Jelly Round Two – コーヒーゼリー・パート２

After trying a couple of coffee jellies a while ago I started to look out for more varieties and realised there are must be at least twenty, but I settled for sampling another three this time, from Morinaga, Emial and Megmilk.

Firstly, Morinaga’s Espresso Coffee Jelly. Unlike Meiji’s jelly, this is made to be eaten straight from the pot but you can always decant it into a pretty bowl or cup for a more indulgent experience. The jelly didn’t quite survive the trip back from the supermarket without breaking up a little but you can still make out some kind of pattern on the surface.

It may just be a peculariaty of the particular one I bought but to me it looks like a design of roses so perhaps this is a little extra flourish from Morinaga.

This jelly feels firmer than usual because it contains kanten, yet has a surprisingly creamy texture, meaning that it feels more like a coffee pudding than a jelly. Being espresso I thought this might be a more adult-oriented product and expected the flavour to be bitter, however it is extremely mild and the cream syrup is very sweet, with a hint of caramel.

As you can expect from Morinaga, which is famous for its caramel, this is a delicious, rich and milky dessert but you will be disappointed if you are looking for a true espresso taste.

The next product is another in the Sweet Cafe range from Emial, just called ‘coffee jelly’.

Of all the coffee jellies I’ve tried so far this has the strongest and most authentic roasted coffee flavour, which lingers as a pleasant aftertaste once the sweetness of the creamy sauce has faded away. On top of this, the sauce itself has a hint of coffee which enhances the flavour of the jelly instead of detracting from it with an overly rich taste.

The jelly chunks are firm and fairly large and at 230g one pot provides a generous serving. Although only faintly bitter the coffee in this dessert is more notable than in the other jellies I reviewed, so I’d recommend Emial for coffee lovers.

Lastly, Megmilk Cream Sweets coffee jelly.

The texture of this jelly is firm and dense and it has the best cream sauce – unlike the thin milky sauce of the Meiji jelly this is properly creamy and taking the first spoonful is like spooning the thick top off a cream hot chocolate.

The coffee taste of the jelly is good too, it’s not bitter but there is a nice hint of dark, roasted flavour.

The combination of rich cream and firm, only slightly sweet jelly works perfectly and there is an ample amount of sauce so that the　flavours and textures are well balanced in every spoonful.

I still have many more jellies to taste but I’m trying to keep things varied so next time I’ll look for something new, like cake or ice cream. Not long until Easter and chocolate!