WOWBOX Japanese Snacks

Japanese snacks are known the world over for their great taste and huge variety with flavours coming and going depending on the season and the time of the year in Japan. Many people will stock up on Japanese snacks while visiting Japan to take home to enjoy as a souvenir, but now you can also easily order Japanese snacks online at your convenience.

WOWBOX is a Japanese snack subscription service that allows you to order your favourite Japanese snacks direct from Tokyo with just a click of your mouse button.

WOWBOX offer one-of-a-kind themed boxes of exclusive Japanese snacks delivered monthly to your doorstep with FREE worldwide shipping. They have four different themes on offer to suit everyone’s taste with one of the most popular being the ‘New & Limited’, which as the name suggests, is filled with new and limited time snacks found in Japan. The four themes include:

‘Fun & Tasty’ – WOWBOX’s original box designed for all lovers of Japanese snacks or those new to Japanese treats

‘Kawaii & Beauty’ – for those who love cute and dainty treats made for the health conscious with beauty-themed products and low-calorie snacks

‘New & Limited’ – a great selection of new and limited snacks from Japan for the Japanese snack connoisseur

‘Dagashi Box’ – a nostalgic collection of snacks that will remind you of childhood in Japan

You can find more information about all these boxes at the WOWBOX website.

I was recently sent a ‘Fun & Tasty’ WOWBOX full of tasty goodies to try during Obon in Japan. All the snacks were amazing with some cool and unique snacks that I haven’t even been able to find here in Japan at the supermarket or convenience store.

I was particularly excited about the Meiji Pucca Chocolate Box with its limited edition design featuring the Tokyo 2020 mascots, and the Ottotto Pokemon Box, which featured 40 different kinds of Pokemon shaped treats.

I was also really surprised to find included some special September WOWBOX items such as the new KOIKEYA [Feel Aloha] series potato chips in ‘Mango & Butter’ flavour and ‘Coconut & Salt’ flavour, both of which were tropical heaven in summer. To top that off, was the Country Ma’am Cookies in Vanilla & Strawberry Shortcake (a commemorative collaboration to celebrate its 35th anniversary as well as Hello Kitty’s 45th anniversary).

These 3 new & exclusive items are available to anyone who orders any large size box BEFORE August 31st 2019.

If you are keen to order yourself some amazing Japanese snacks visit the WOWBOX website and enter this exclusive Coupon Code JPAU2019 for Japan Australia followers to receive 10% OFF any large size box. Hurry as the offer expires on 9/15/2019.

You can follow WOWBOX on Facebook and Instagram to keep up to date with all their exclusive offers.

KFC Colonel Crispy Potato Chips

KFC Colonel Crispy Chicken flavoured Potato Chips are a collaboration between Japanese snack maker Calbee and KFC. Calbee has long been our favourite Japanese snack maker, famous for their jyagariko potato sticks and light crispy potato chips. These potato chips are flavoured to taste like a piece of the Japanese original Colonel Crispy Chicken that is sold at KFC stores in Japan. It is basically a crispy boneless chicken strip with a hint of garlic and soy sauce.

They went on sale at convenience stores across Japan on January 6 and other stores from January 13, and will be available for a limited time. The potato chips sell for 148 yen (USD$1.48).

The package features the famous logo of Colonel Sanders on the front, while the back of the package has a discount coupon. The coupon can be used to receive a piece of the Colonel Crispy Chicken for 140 yen instead of the usual price of 170 yen. It is valid until March 23, which is not a bad spot of marketing if you ask me.

KFC Colonel Crispy Potato Chips

How Do They Taste? 

Pretty good! The smell of fried chicken hits you straight away as you open up the bag. There is a generous amount of chips and the chicken flavour is spot on. It really does taste like a piece of the Colonel’s Crispy Chicken.

Check out our Video below

Calbee Japan Website

Halloween Snacks in Japan

Autumn is one of the best times of year in Japan for seasonal food and drink. Some of the seasonal delicacies include kabocha (Japanese pumpkin) kuri (chestnuts) and satsumaimo (sweet potato). During the summer Japan Australia wrote about some of the summer snacks that were available in Japan. Now it’s Autumn and time for those Autumn Halloween snacks that have been making an appearance. Every Halloween in Japan special versions of popular snacks are produced with jack-o-lanterns, ghosts, witches and wizards just some of the cute Halloween designs that can be found.

Some of our favourite Halloween Snacks have been:

Pumpkin Pudding Kit Kat 

A special edition of Kit Kat just for Halloween. This one taste just like a sweet pudding with a hint of Japanese pumpkin.

Pumpkin Pudding Kit Kat

Pumpkin Pudding Kit Kat Close up

Angel Pie 

Angel Pie is a popular Japanese snack that consists of two small round cakes with marshmallow filling all covered in chocolate. They remind me of the wagon wheels we have back in Australia.

Halloween Angel Pie

Koala no March Chocolate 

A special Halloween version of Koala no March featuring our favourite Koala in cute Halloween costumes. These bite size koala shaped cookies have a sweet chocolate filling inside and are just so cute!

Halloween Koala no March

Kinoko no Yama and Takenoko no Sato 

Two of our all-time favourite Japanese snacks taste just the same, but come in special Halloween packaging. Konoko no Yama literally means "mushroom mountain" and these snacks are mushroom shaped biscuits with a chocolate top. Takenoko no Sato literally means "bamboo shoot village" and these snacks look just like little bamboo shoots topped with chocolate.

Halloween Kinoko no Yama & Takenoko no Sato

Halloween Konoko no Yama

They look just like little mushrooms

Halloween Takenoko no Sato

Takenoko no Sato Chocolate

Toppo 

Toppo is like a reverse Pocky! A biscuit stick with the topping on the inside. This is a special Halloween version of Toppo.

Halloween Toppo

Krispy Kreme Japan 

Krispy Kreme released some Halloween donuts called Krispy Skremes! They include the Caramel Halloween Jack, Orange Chocolate Spider and Purple Potato Mont Blanc.

Krispy Skremes!

Caramel Halloween Jack

Orange Chocolate Spider

Purple Potato Mont Blanc

Which of these would you like to try? Please leave your answer in the comments below.

Summer Snacks in Japan

One of the great things about living in Japan is the seasonal food and drinks that come around every year, and summer in no exception. Summer 2013 in Japan has seen a great range of summer snacks hit the shelves at conbini (convenience stores) and supermarkets around the country. A few of my favourites have been:

Summer Pocky

Two new summer flavours of Pocky came out for summer 2013. These are Tropical Pocky and Coconut Pocky. Tropical Pocky is very fruity with the Pocky stick covered in mango cream and infused with bits of pineapple. Coconut Pocky features the Pocky stick covered with chocolate and coconut. It was delicious and definitely is our favourite of the summer Pocky.

Coconut Pocky & Tropical Pocky

Passionfruit / Cookies & Cream KitKat

Two new summer versions of KitKat also hit the shelves this summer. Passionfruit KitKat and Cookies & Cream KitKat. Passionfruit KitKat is very sweet and has a strong fruity passionfruit taste. Perfect for any passionfruit fan. Cookies & Cream KitKat is best eaten cold straight out of the fridge or freezer, and is very sweet and delicious. It's hard to beat our all time favourite Matcha Green Tea KitKat but these come close.

Passionfruit KitKat

Cookies & Cream KitKat

Crunch Caramel & Vanilla

Crunch Caramel & Vanilla is also recommended to be beaten cold and is super sweet. It has a great texture and is very good.

Crunch Caramel and Vanilla

Watermelon Chocolate Chip Cookies

Watermelon or Suika is an extremely popular summer flavour in Japan and you will find it in all sorts of things.These Watermelon Chocolate Chip Cookies are a very interesting idea and taste pretty good.

Watermelon Chocolate Chip Cookies

Calbee Salty Lemon Potato Chips

These have been our favourite summer potato chip with a great lemony taste that is just perfect with a cold beer.

Calbee Salty Lemon Potato Chips

Pepsi Shuwa Shuwa Cola Corn Snacks

An unusual flavour that really does taste like Pepsi with that refreshing shuwa shuwa (fizzy bubbles) feeling! They are basically Cheetos that are covered in a fizzy cola powder.

Pepsi Shuwa Shuwa Cola Corn Snacks

What is your favourite Japanese Summer Snack for 2013? Please leave your answers in the comments below.

Star Wars Pocky

Japanese food maker Glico has joined forces with Star Wars to produce some limited edition Star Wars Pocky. Pocky (ポッキー) is a Japanese biscuit stick produced by Ezaki Glico, and made its debut in 1966. Star Wars Pocky comes in two different boxes, one featuring Darth Vader and the other Luke Skywalker. These are the Giant Pocky, so each one is about 20cm and thicker than your normal Pocky. One pack contains 6 Pocky sticks and they come in three flavours Strawberry, Kyoho Grape, and Matcha Green Tea with each one individually wrapped.

Note: Kyoho is a type of giant mountain grape in Japan.

The front cover of Star Wars Pocky

The back features some info on the lightsabers

Each Pocky stick corresponds to a different Star Wars character’s lightsaber. The Strawberry one belongs to Darth Vader, the Grape to Luke Skywalker and the Matcha to the Jedi Master Yoda. They are very cool and do look like Star Wars Lightsabers. You can have a lot of fun eating these.

The Star Wars Pocky Lightsabers individually wrapped

How do they taste? Both the strawberry and grape have a strong smell and are pretty light on the flavour with the biscuit stick dominating. The flavour is quite artificial tasting with the grape one reminding us of the Grape Hi-Chew. Matcha Green Tea was by far and away the most delicious with a nice Matcha taste and even had Matcha inside the biscuit stick. I wouldn't say I’m a big fan of the Giant Pocky (excuse the pun) as the Pocky is too heavy on the biscuit and a lot lighter on the icing/topping compared to your regular Pocky.

Star Wars Pocky ~ Strawberry

Star Wars Pocky ~ Kyoho Grape

Star Wars Pocky ~ Matcha Green Tea

Glico as part of this campaign have produced a whole range of branded snacks such as curry, gyudon, chukadon, fried rice, Pretz, and other snacks. You can see all of these at the Glico website

A few that we have had the chance to try include:

Glico Star Wars Shinise Yoshoku Beef Curry

Star Wars Tomato Pretz

Star Wars Cecil Milk Chocolate

Star Wars Pocky is available in convenience stores and some supermarkets in Japan. You can pick up a packet for 300 yen (USD$3.00).

You can read more about Pocky on my recent Pocky Post

Check out my Star Wars Pocky Video on YouTube

Star Wars Pocky

Pocky Japanese Biscuit Stick

Pocky (ポッキー) is a Japanese biscuit stick produced by Ezaki Glico. Pocky made its debut in 1966 and the original Pocky was a biscuit stick coated in chocolate. The original was followed by almond in 1971 and strawberry in 1977. Today there are many different flavours of Pocky in Japan including chocolate, almond, strawberry, milk, chocolate mousse, green tea, honey and banana. Pocky is extremely popular in Japan especially among teenagers and young adults. It has also spread to other East Asian nations and has a significant presence in both South Korea and China. It has just started becoming popular in Western countries such as Australia, Canada and the United States.

Pocky can be found in dozens of varieties as mentioned above. Some of the more unusual flavours include seasonal flavours such as honey (spring) and kiwifruit mango (summer). There are also regional versions of Pocky including grape (Nagano), yubari melon (Hokkaido), tangerine (Kyushu), azuki bean (Kyoto) and Kobe wine (Kobe).

Special variations of Pocky also sometimes appear and these include “Decorer Pocky” (features extra decorative icing), “Men’s Pocky” (a dark bitter chocolate version), “Mousse Pocky” (mousse like icing that is thick and creamy) “Dessert Pocky” (features sticks covered in cream), and Pocky Midi (shorter, stubbier version).

Pocky even has its own National Day, Pocky Day, which is November 11th (11-11). The event is held on November 11th as the date (11-11) resembles four sticks of Pocky.

Pocky Chocolate

The original and still the best in my opinion with a rich delicious milk chocolate coating.

Pocky Chocolate Snoopy Special

Pocky Chocolate

Pocky Chocolate Biscuit Sticks

Pocky Tsubu Tsubu Strawberry

A flavour boost from the original strawberry with pieces of dried strawberry and very addictive.

Pocky Tsubu Tsubu Strawberry 

Pocky Tsubu Tsubu Strawberry Packet

Pocky Tsubu Tsubu Strawberry Biscuit Sticks

Here are some of the recent editions of Pocky we at Japan Australia have tried:

Pocky Matcha Cream

One of my new favourites is matcha cream. Slightly bitter but the cream adds a nice sweet balance.

Pocky Matcha Cream

Pocky Matcha Cream Packet

Pocky Matcha Cream Biscuit Sticks

Pocky Star Wars

A collaboration with Star Wars to produce these limited edition Star Wars Giant Pocky. They come in two different boxes and feature three flavours, Strawberry, Kyoho Grape and Matcha Green Tea. Read all about them on my Star Wars Pocky post.

Front Cover Star Wars Pocky

The Star Wars Pocky Lightsabers come individually wrapped

Star Wars Pocky Strawberry

Pocky Panda ~ Cookies & Cream

Pocky Panda is a limited edition Panda inspired Pocky. The flavour is cookies and cream and the biscuit stick is made with cocoa. The topping is really sweet and features white chocolate cream with specks of real crunchy chocolate cookie.

Pocky Panda with a cute panda on the box

The packaging has cute pandas printed all over it

The biscuit sticks with a creamy topping and real pieces of cookie

Fuyu no Kuchidoke Pocky

A new Winter Pocky in Japan ~ Fuyu no Kuchidoke! Winter Chocolate Pocky with Fine Chocolate. It has a stronger chocolate flavour than normal Pocky with the outside coated in powdered cocoa. Hurry it is limited edition!

Fuyo no Kuchidoke Pocky 

MORE POCKY FLAVOURS TO COME.....

What is your favourite Pocky?