Japan is famous for having some of the most unique food in the world, which also extends to snacks and sweet treats. As someone with a massive savoury and sweet tooth, it was a lot of fun to dive into a Sakura Co box that housed a themed range of Japanese snacks and discover new surprises.
What is Sakura Co?
Based in Tokyo, Sakura Co specialises in curated boxes of Japanese snacks that showcase the character and stories of regions across Japan. Every box is based around a certain Japanese theme or takes inspiration from Japanese food history.
The box I got stuck in to was based on the theme of matsuri, also known as Japanese festivals. The snacks inside the box reflected the kind of street food that can be found at different festivals and there was a strong emphasis on Tokyo.
What’s inside the box?
There’s a huge amount of sweet and savoury goodness to enjoy in a Sakura Co box! The matsuri collection featured a wide range of unique snacks, including:
- Petit kabuki crackers – Sweet and salty mini fried rice crackers flavoured with soy sauce and sugar.
- Ukai senbei – Savoury biscuits stamped with two birds and made in Gifu Prefecture.
- Koboyashi mentaiko beans – Crunchy beans flavoured with spicy cod roe.
- Shrimp & sesame age mochi – Flavoured with salted shrimp, nori, konbu and dried bonito.
- Tiramisu baumkuchen – A fluffy, buttery cake with a texture similar to tiramisu.
- Roppo manju – Six sided Japanese sweets filled with azuki red bean.
- Sweet potato sachi steamed cake – Made with sweet potato and Hokkaido milk.
- Festival castella bites – Traditional Japanese festival street food snacks.
- Kaminari ginger okoshi – Made from ginger, sesame and peanuts, this dessert has been around since the Edo period.
- Sencha tea.
- Ginger cinnamon candy.
- Tokyo banana manju.
- Melopan – A soft pastry flavoured with melon.
- Hanabi jelly – A delicious and fruity jelly crafted in the colour of fireworks.
- Spring water utage jelly.
All of the products in the box showcased the character of the places they were made. Some of my favourite snacks from the collection were the banana manju, melopan, hanabi jelly and tiramisu cake.
The versatility of Sakura Co boxes makes for an epic culinary journey through Japan. You can subscribe to different packages and receive new snack boxes every month.
Yamato Magazine 