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UHA

Friday, June 15, 2007

Shigekix Aha! Brain (Citrus)

Aha! BrainOne of the things I like so much about some of the Japanese candies is that they’re incredibly flavorful. I couple of months ago I got an email from the fine folks at JBox telling me about a new UHA Shigekix product called Aha! Brain. It comes in a few different flavors, including “Energy Drink Flavor”, which puzzled me and scared me enough to prompt me to stick to the comfortably familiar flavor called Citrus Flavor.

Shigekix is the delicious candy that gives a new meaning to the word sour, often causing people to contort their faces in sour shock horror. Giving your taste buds a yummy and rude awakening of fruity flavor, they now “function” to give your brain a wake up call as Aha! Brain Shigekix. Fortified with BCAA (Branched Chain Amino Acids), “Shigekix Aha! Brain” works to stimulate your brain cells to give you more moments of “Aha!” when you figure out the solutions to complex problems (or maybe simple ones, ‘proving’ that they actually work). (link)

I tried Shigekix a couple of years ago in the Cola flavor and found them kind of fun. This package doesn’t have the familiar schmoo character on the front, instead a PacMan type character with some sort of electrified brain.

Aha! Brain Close upThe little gumdrop shaped candies are covered in a light and uneven candy shell. The shell is merely sweet and carries no flavor as far as I can tell. The gummi center, however, is jam packed with flavor. The gummi is much softer than the regular Shigekix, rather like a slightly stale Haribo Bear.

The citrus flavor is just bursting with complexity. It has the zesty notes of grapefruit and perhaps yuzu and lemon then the tart bite and a bit of sweet juiciness. I have no idea if my brain is more awake than before, but my salivary glands are working overtime here.

I probably wouldn’t go popping this to solve problems, but I could see it being a good treat for long car trips where I need to stay alert.

Shigegix Aha! Brain also comes in Muscat flavor.

imageCheck out the JBox site where they feature four different ads from Japan for the product. I have no idea what’s going on (I believe the dancing woman in the yellow helmet is caused by eating Aha! Brain). Now I want that helmet (I rode my bike to work today and my plain white helmet just isn’t doing it for me ... well, except for protecting my now super-Aha’ed brain).

Name: Shigekix Aha! Brain
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: UHA
Place Purchased: sample from JBox
Price: $1.50
Size: 150 grams
Calories per ounce: unknown
Categories: Gummi, Sour, Japan, UHA

POSTED BY Cybele AT 8:09 am    

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

UHA Puccho Custard

These are freakish, disarming and charming all at once. I don’t know why I ordered them from JBox, but I’m certainly glad I did.

I thought that the Puccho line is really inventive. If you’ve never had them they’re a chew studded with bits of gummi and then other candy, usually little sour or fizzy nuggets. I know it sounds weird but it really works.

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JBox.com called this variety Baked Puccho—Custard Cream. But from the package and taste I’ve decided it’s really creme brulee.

The chew is a light vanilla, smooth though not quite as bouncy as HiCHEW. Then as the chew continues there are little grainy sparkles of caramelized sugar and then soft and dense nuggets of caramel flavored gummis. Creamy and crunchy and chewy.

It sounds weird, I know, but they’re completely addictive and I’m sorry I didn’t buy more (especially since they’re currently out of them). They’re satisfying in that they make me feel like I’ve had a decadent fatty custard but they’re also so engaging because of the chew that I want to keep it going.

The other flavor they have in stock at JBox right now is Mikakuto Baked Puccho—Baked Apple & Cinnamon which also sounds pretty weird, but judging by my first impression of these, they’re probably very good.

Name: Baked Puccho - Custard Cream
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: UHA
Place Purchased: courtesy of JBox.com
Price: $1.40
Size: 60 grams
Calories per ounce: unknown
Categories: Chew, Gummi, Japan, UHA

POSTED BY Cybele AT 5:06 am    

Friday, April 13, 2007

Koakuma Goth Puccho

Koakuma PackageKoakuma from UHA are a curious little candy. They’ve taken their wildly popular Puccho and combined them with the flavors and colors of the Gothic Lolita style popular in Japan. Koakuma means “little devil” and the package sports the little character all over it. With a heart shaped face, little bat wings and on the bottom of the pleated bag, she rides a trident like a broom.

These little candies come individually wrapped inside larger pouches. The taffy base is black with rich colored stripes and then studded with gummis.

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Koakuma Peach Rose

I’m not usually fond of peach flavored candies. Don’t misunderstand, I’m a huge fan of fresh peaches, canned peaches and even dried peaches. There’s just something about many peach flavored candies I’m just not fond of.

No matter, because these don’t taste like peaches. It smells like peaches, but it tastes like mildly tart floral berries.

The little gummy bits provide and interesting texture to the bouncy chew. It was very fresh and soft and pretty darn good. I was really surprised I ate most of the bag.

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Koakuma Blueberry Rose

I’ve never really been that impressed with blueberry as a flavor. I often get it confused with raspberry in candies, and this one is no exception. It tastes like raspberry and a little floral note thrown in there with the rose. But I have to say that I’m impressed that the color actually looks like blueberries instead of like something pharmaceutical.

Again, bouncy and chewy and fresh and thoroughly enjoyable.

Both of them were nice, but the specific flavors just weren’t my favorites. I think I’d like a strawberry with rose or maybe a grape and violet. I bet they’d make a fun gift for someone who’s intro Goth though. (Who doesn’t like candies that match their nail polish?) There is another flavor called Cassis & Grape that I saw on JList for $1.80 (which has lots of other Gothic Lolita cosplay stuff to complete the look).

Here are some other reviews:
Japanese Snack Review & Giant Jeans Parlor

Name: Koakuma: Peach Rose & Blueberry Rose
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: UHA
Place Purchased: gift from Santos (thanks!)
Price: unknown
Size: 1.41 ounces
Calories per ounce: unknown
Categories: Chew, Gummi, Japan, UHA

POSTED BY Cybele AT 11:45 am    

Monday, January 15, 2007

Short & Sweet: Japanese Goodies

I have too much candy and at one review a day I’m never going to get to it all.

And if I review more than one a day, well, I’m just not going to have enough time for anything else.

So here it is, a “Short & Sweet” review of a buncha stuff Japanese stuff:

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High Concentration Milk Candy (made by UHA) -are little hard candies, kind of like a hard toffee. They taste distinctly of milk and are very sweet. They’re also rather satisfying without being too sticky. I’m sure there’s some high calcium content in there but the wrapper was all in Japanese.

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Cubyrop (made by Bourbon) - oh they’re such cute candies! Little fruit flavored hard candies in Strawberry, Pineapple, Orange, Peach, Lemon, Muscat and Grape. Some flavors were very tasty, but I didn’t care much for the peach, which was a rather difficult flavor to distinguish from the orange. Lots of vitamin C.

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They came in little wrappers that held two little candy cubes. They were completely random, so you’d never know when you were going to get a muscat and grape together.

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Look Nut ala Mode (made by Fujiya) is a strange little tray of chocolates in a box with a wide, envelope-like flap. Great for sharing, they’re pretty and of descent quality even for less than $2.00.

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It took me quite a while to realize that there were four different nut flavors ... not that each chocolate contained all flavors. I have no idea, beyond the rather green pistachio one which was which. I enjoyed all of them except for the macadamia, which seemed more coconutty.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 6:49 am     CandyReviewBourbonUHAChocolateHard Candy & LollipopsNutsToffee6-TemptingJapan

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

UHA Puccho

The Japanese have some strange candies and these have to be right up there at the top. Puccho are pretty popular and with good reason, they deliver just about everything. They have variety in both the experience and the range of flavors, great packaging, they’re inexpensive and of course you can share them easily.

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There was a wide variety of flavor combinations at the store and I was especially interested in the Cola one but wanted to stay away from the yogurt ones (I like yogurt, but not as a flavor).

The Cola (in the red package) was awesome. The little piece had white and brown stripes in the candy and every once in a while there was a little piece of cola flavored gummi or a nugget of sour foamy grains. The grains gave it a lemon-cola zap and the gummis gave the soft, Hi-CHEW-like taffy a little bump of longevity.

The second one is a bit more of a mystery. The English sticker on the label calls it Genki Drink, which didn’t really help me to narrow it down because I didn’t know what a Genki Drink is. A little time on Google and I knew EXACTLY what they are ... you’ve probably seen them before, those mysterious brown glass bottles by the checkout at the Asian markets and tea shops that claim to boost your mental acuity and, um, other things.

The saffron colored chews are similarly soft and have a tangy, lemon tea flavor to them but also a floral note that reminded me of violets. There are similar nuggets of white powder that release a little zap of fizz and tartness, but these seem to have a bitter bite to them. The little gummi bits linger and have a little fruity taste to them and help to scrub away any lingering taffy bits in the teeth (that’s how they’re described on the Puccho website).

I definitely found the Cola ones fun and practically addictive except for the later burps that the little fizzy bits seem to generate. The Genki, not so much, even though it probably has infusions of all sorts of healthy things (the only one I’m sure of is vitamin C). I’ll probably stick to my tried-and-true Hi-CHEW but the Cola ones are definitely compelling if I’m in a mood.

Interesting note: the motto for UHA Mikakuto is “Deliciousness is Gentleness”

Name: Puccho Cola & Genki Drink
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: UHA Mikakuto
Place Purchased: Mitsuwa Marketplace (Little Tokyo)
Price: $.99 each
Size: 1.76 ounces
Calories per ounce: 90
Categories: Chew, Sour, Gummi, Japan, UHA Mikakuto

POSTED BY Cybele AT 5:57 am    

Friday, February 17, 2006

Hard Candy: Juntsuyu

There are some candy aficionados who turn up their noses at hard candy. Sure, they might think a candy cane is nice as decoration, but certainly not meant to be eaten and savored. I actually like hard candy a lot. I like Lifesavers (or did until they mucked around with the flavors in the standard five flavor roll), I like starlite mints, lemon drops and I love barley sugar candy. When I saw these at the Japanese market, I was hoping they were barley sugar, though it didn’t say that was part of the ingredients. In fact, I’m not sure what they are except for solidified, cello-wrapped heaven.

image

These little morsels look like drops of honey. There are two flavors, the golden ones and the darker ones. I have no idea what flavor they are, but the dark ones taste like sweet black iced tea. The lighter ones taste like sweet sugar with a hint of jasmine. The little bottom of them forms a pentagon and has a little hole in it. There are virtually no air bubbles or voids anywhere in the candy, which makes them exceptionally smooth.

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The little cones (about one inch tall) fit nicely in the mouth and have no sharpness to them that can cut the roof of your mouth, which has always been the danger with cheap sour balls. These dissolve slowly and release a delicately sweet flavor across your mouth that will linger for hours after you eat them. They’re crunchable too, as I am prone to chewing up my hard candies. The black tea ones (which I’ve already eaten all of) have a strong tea flavor to them with not a hint of bitterness. The sweet aromatic jasmine in the light ones (or whatever flavor it might be) is clean and fresh.

For some reason these were strangely expensive. At $2.29 for a scant three and a half ounces, I’ve gone and gotten myself addicted to some pricey boiled sugar. The brand, Shirakiku, is known as a tea and snack brand in Japan and to many Americans who buy Japanese teas (like my favorite Genmaicha) and those seaweed rice crackers. I have not been able to find anything about this candy anywhere online, though it’s possible that the English word “juntsuyu” isn’t quite accurate (as is often the case with the American labels slapped on the back of these import packages). So if any of my sweet Japanese readers can help me figure out what these are, I’d be ever so grateful.

UPDATE 4/18/07: JBox is now carrying Juntsuyu (at my request, thankee-thankee). For the record, since I did this review I’ve eaten three more bags of these and also put them in the Christmas Stockings last year.

Name: Candy "Juntsuyu"
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Shirakiku
Place Purchased: Mitsuwa (Little Tokyo)
Price: $2.29
Size: 3.49 ounces
Calories per ounce: 86
Categories: Hard Candy, Japan

POSTED BY Cybele AT 9:40 am    

Friday, December 2, 2005

Shigekix Super Cola

Name: Shigekix Super Cola
Brand: Shigekix
Place Purchased:  gift (but you can get them at JBox)
Price: $1.75
Size: 50 grams
Calories per ounce: unknown
Type: Sour Hard Gummi

My blogging buddy, Lisa, sent this to me. She didn’t pick it up in Japan, she got it in New York, which makes the trip it’s taken extra special.
image

They look like little incense cones, little hard cones covered in a salty, sour powder. I wasn’t quite sure what they were, as the package is in Japanese, but what I could glean from the package was that these were sour. (I’m not quite sure what the female schmoo thing is on the front, but she sure is cute.)

They smell like cola, which is an odd smell in and of itself, really. The gummy isn’t really gummy either, it’s a hard little piece that’s not quite hard enough to be considered hard candy. Pop one in your mouth and you pucker. There’s no way to not describe these as incredibly sour. The flavor of the sour is a bit lemony but a little salty too. Then that subsides and you get the cola flavor and a little hard gummy bit. Then you want another one. They took a little getting used to, but with a lot of the extreme candies, they’re rather addictive.

They remind me a lot of the So Wonderful Lemon Drops I tried months ago. I think I might pick up the grape ones sometime, but for now, cola is a great choice for a sour treat. I have to say that eating to many will eventually burn the tongue. And give you a tummy ache. But I’ve found that to be true with most foods.

Rating - 7 out of 10

POSTED BY Cybele AT 7:18 am     CandyReviewUHAGummi CandySour7-Worth ItJapan

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Gummi Sushi

Name: Mikakuto Osushi Gummy
Brand: Uha-Mikakuto (distributed by Hosada Bros)
Acquired from: www.candywarehouse.com
Price: $14.90 for a set of two boxes
Size: 1.41 oz
Calories per ounce: 98
Type: Gummi/Marshmallow

This has got to be one of the cutest candies I have ever seen. It’s gummi sushi. The fish is little fruit-flavored gummies, the rice is marshmallow and there’s a little chocolate goo inside the marshmallow (I’m not sure what that’s supposed to be).

 

Inside the box are eight individually sealed pieces. There’s a huge variety. As far as I can tell: a grape octopus, a pineapple roe, a raspberry tuna, a green apple something (looked kinda like edamame, but you don’t usually have that on rice), a berry shrimp ... I think that’s about it. I’m guessing the variety differs depending on random chance. There’s a little guide on the inside of the lid ... in Japanese, but at least it shows you all the varieties.

 

The gummi part is very fragrant, soft and fresh. The marshmallow is a really nice complement to the tart gummi, but the chocolate center just kind of ruins it for me.

As a gift or stocking stuffer, this is great. It’s novel and well packaged (easy to wrap) and the images on it are really cute. It’s a little expensive, but I’d be willing to buy something like this for the right person. For just eating, I’ll probably stick to regular gummi bears.

Interesting fact from wrapper: no MSG!

Rating - 7 out of 10 (because of the price and funky chocolate filling)

POSTED BY Cybele AT 8:06 am     CandyReviewUHAGummi CandyMarshmallow7-Worth ItJapan

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