After a good batch with nice variety last month I was excited to get my second Japan Crate.
As with last month, the crate is certainly packed with unique and varied edibles from Japan. It also includes a mini-manga that explains what each item is and has instructions for the DIY kit and various additional context, pictures and promotion.
August’s crate came with 13 items. I’m giving the Pokemon Puzzle Gum to my nephew, so won’t be reviewing it (although I feel safe in assuming gum and stickers would have received at least a “decent” from me). Here’s a look at the other 12:
The Excellent
There were two awesome soda flavored candies in this one, which makes me very happy. Shuwa Shuwa Soda Candy is a hard candy with a “fizzy” center in cola, orange and grape flavors. Soda Mixing Jelly Beans (one of the Premium Crate exclusives) came in five flavors of Japanese soda and are meant to be tasted in various combinations. The Premium Crate had another crunchy savory snack this month in the form of Japanese BBQ Scones, which had the consistency of Cheetos with a light, sweetish BBQ flavor.
There was a lot of great chocolate this time, including Chocolate Pucca (pretzel shells filled with chocolate) and Puzzle & Dragons x Bikkuriman Wafer (standard chocolate filled wafer with a collectible playing card). The DIY kit was also chocolate related. There were two possible kits, and I got the Apollo DIY, which had white, strawberry and milk chocolate tubes and a mold with which to create little chocolate treats. This was easy to do and amusing. The mini-candies to put in the chocolates to give them crunch was a nice touch, and it all tasted quite good.
The Decent
Mario Kart Gum is a thread style packaging of small flat squares of gum in wrappers adorned with characters from the game. Was softer than the hard bubble gum usually packaged in these types of things over here. Wow, Such Banana?! is a banana shaped/flavored marshmallow treat filled with chocolate, if you can call a tiny thread running through the center “filled with.” The chocolate was tastable though, so I’ll give them a pass on that. The packaging of Crayon Shin-Chan Candy captures the particular humor style of its namesake show. The candy itself is essentially mini-gobstoppers.
This month’s Premium Crate’s drink is Creamy Melon Soda, which tasted exactly as expected. Crackling Cotton is an interesting cotton candy textured snack with little bits of pop rocks throughout. Not something I’d have often, but unique and quite good. There were two possible savory pretz flavors, and I got Tom Yum Pretz. I’ve never had the soup so can’t compare, but this did have a spicy edge to it along with a sweeter undertone. Not entirely my thing, but I liked it much more than I expected.
The Meh
Nothing this month. YAY!
Conclusion
A great month, where there was nothing I actively disliked and several things I would buy on my own if I could. The Premium Crate exclusives continue to easily be worth the $5 upgrade. I continue to be impressed by the quality and variety of snacks in Japan Crate and am looking forward to the next one.
Derailments of Thought 