These days it gets cooler and cooler every time it rains. In the afternoon you see dragonflys in the sky, and in the evening you hear bell crickets singing in the dark. Yes, summer is over… And many of PingMag’s colleagues are coming back from their late summer vacations with sweet souvenirs. The white table we usually use for our meetings is covered in local specialities everyday - it’s almost like some kind of sweet festival. Today we’ll show you some of their lovely package designs.
Written by Chiemi
So let’s start with “Bontan Candy” and “Hyouryoku Mochi” from Kagoshima prefecture. The very retro design of Bontan Candy dates from 1926. The sweet and sour flavor will remind many Japanese people of their vacation by the beach… “Hyouryoku Mochi” is a sister product of Bontan Candy, which is made by Seika Foods. The scary illustration is taken from a story called Hyouryoku Yume Monogatari drawn about 200 years ago, because they wanted Hyouryoku Mochi to be loved by as many people as the old story is.
Seika Foods also have a cute product called “Nangoku Shirokuma” (South Pole Bear) which is shaved ice with condensed milk.
Next is “Kamome no Tamago (seagull eggs)” from Iwate prefecture. But actually this is sold almost everywhere in the Tohoku district. The yellow bean jam covered with white chocolate, was invented by the first president of Saito Seika in 1950. In those days, mixing something with bean jam was considered to be the wrong thing to do. However, his drastic idea brought them big success.
By the way, Saito Seika is located in Ofunato city in Iwate, which is the south part of Sanriku Beach.
If you have lived in Japan for many years, you must have heard of “Toraya’s Yokan”, which is easily the king of souvenirs. You can buy them almost everywhere in Japan now, but it has been known as a high class Japanese sweet since the Edo period. Yokan is a bar of sweetened and jellied bean paste, but Toraya’s yokan is not too sweet. Generally people knows Toraya’s yokan as the one in the bamboo leaf, but the ones we got this time are more modern. There are Japanese tea, coffee and brown sugar flavours, and one called “Travel in the sky”. “Travel in the sky” was created by Toraya’s 15th president Takeo Kurokawa who was also the Minister of Health and Welfare. Apparently he got the idea for this special yokan when he saw a sunset on his way to Geneva. And the color is a very beautiful pink. (Click for “Travel in the sky“)
Ther next one is “The original, Kibidango” from Okayama prefecture. Kibidango is best known as the sweet that Momotaro carried with him in the Japanese folktale. In the story, Momotaro went to Onigashima to destroy demons and on the way he gathered himself some retainers - a dog, a monkey and a pheasant - by giving them this Kibidango.
On this package, all the characters of the Momotaro story are made into a cute illustration, but I must say many Japanese people must realize that there is no octopus in the real story..
In Japan, many sweet companies make special limited versions of their sweets that you can find only in certain areas. Melon flavor Hi-Chew from Hokkaido, vegetable pickles flavor Ototo from Shinshu and Goya Chanpuru flavor Karl from Okinawa are probably good examples.
In this kind of thing, Glico seems to be putting more effort into Pretz than anyone else - you can find pineapple flavor in Hawaii, maple syrup flavor Pretz in Canada and also Shanghai crab flavor in Shanghai… And the one we got is cherry flavoured soft candy Puccho.
Limited version of Puccho, cherry flavor from Tohoku area
“Osaka Petit Banana” is obviously from Osaka prefecture. Very tasty banana cream brulee in a soft sponge cake.. mmm… But wait a minute! Since when were bananas a special product of Osaka? I wonder if this is a challenge to another very famous souvenir, “Tokyo Banana“…
Very black “Ikasumi Senbei (Squid ink rice cracker)” is apparently from somewhere near the Sea of Japan. It looks very simple but if you have a close look at the font and the surface of the rice cracker, you can tell that the designer paid special attention to it. The taste is good too.
Very famous and very popular “Otabe” which is also known as “Nama- yatsuhashi” is a souvenir from Kyoto prefecture. The black is made with black sesami and bamboo charcoal. The package is a nice mixture of tradition and modern. The black sweets always attract people’s attention.
box of “Otabe”
“Toushou Kasutera” is in a golden box
“Tosho Kasutera” in a shiny golden box is from Nikko. But this castella cake is very different from ordinary castella. It’s contains gold leaf! The family crest on the top of the box is from the Tokugawa family, so it could be the most luxurious souvenir you can get…
Souvenirs from abroad
Probably because bringing back some sweets from your holiday is a very Japanese custom, the packages of sweets from abroad seem very simple in comparison.
These are souvenirs from Bali. Bali coffee on the left and sweets with sesami on the right. The coffee is very strong, but the sweets taste almost like Japanese sweets.
Coffee packaging is almost the same everywhere
It says “good luck” in Kanji. These taste like Japanese sweets.
Next are some candies from Hong Kong and Thailand. The candy from Hong Kong is wrapped in rice-paper. Looking at these candies makes me realize that many products in Japan are slightly over wrapped..
Candy from Hong Kong
Candy from Thailand
Extras
And lastly, here is “Oppai Choco (titties choco)” and “Ochinchin Choco (willy choco)” from Shinshu. Don’t ask me why they make these! They probably don’t know why either..
it tastes of milk chocolate…
it tastes of white chocolate…
If you know some nice souvenirs, let us know!
21 Comments
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i do agree with that the many products in Japan are slightly over wrapped.. not slightly sometimes even too much
but is a kind of culture thing,so.
Posted by: li on October 3rd, 2006 at 2:39 am
Once I tried a small mass stuffed of soft candy. I don’t remember the name, but I fell in love with the soft flavor. Here in Argentina, the candies usually are stronger. Wonderful article, that packaging is unique!!!
Posted by: Sergio on October 3rd, 2006 at 4:11 am
One of the reasons that souvenirs are not wrapped as omiyage are is due to how they are distributed. In the West, while it’s good form to bring something to share, it’s not expected and usually one brings items only to friends or family. In Japan, you have to bring omiyage to your company if it’s a company trip as a sign of appreciation for picking up any work in the traveller’s absence. Therefore, the small-(and over-)wrapped portions in Japanese omiyage are meant for equal, sanitary distribution, souvenir snacks not directly marketed to Japanese tourists are meant for bringing to intimate friends, family, or colleagues.
Posted by: Marchie on October 3rd, 2006 at 2:30 pm
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Posted by: Flying People » Archive » Sweet Souvenir Design. on October 3rd, 2006 at 6:33 pm
When I was little, I was used to the asian candy my mother brought! Epsecially thai stuff :)
Here in Greece we do also have “souvenir” candy, although mostly distastefully wrapped with images of the Parthenon, or statue :)
Some bright exceptions can be found here http://www.mastihashop.gr/
Cheers, keep up the good work :)
Posted by: freethan on October 3rd, 2006 at 6:42 pm
Sweet article!
Posted by: Stefan on October 3rd, 2006 at 9:34 pm
white rabbit! we have that here. the candy is wrapped twice, the innermost one is edible!
Posted by: anonymous on October 3rd, 2006 at 10:41 pm
I can definitely agree that Japanese packaging is overwrapped, but from the abundant amount of packing I have seen, it looks SO much better than its American counterparts.
Seriously, we have some fugly stuff on our shelves.
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Posted by: Flu Vaccine on October 4th, 2006 at 2:38 pm
I so wish that English sweets were wrapped in Japanese style packaging with all its bright kooky characters and hot colours! It would make shopping more fun.
Posted by: Risy on October 5th, 2006 at 8:06 pm
aw, i love white rabbit, it taste really good ;p
Posted by: sun. on October 6th, 2006 at 10:38 pm
We just got a bag of White Rabbit, I saved every wrapper ! So fun, love buying for the great packages, even more than taste. Altho white rabbits are tasty. I wish American candy wraps were more adventurous…very generic.
Posted by: mallomere on October 7th, 2006 at 6:21 pm
In sweden they have a chocolate bar called plopp. As in a poo. I find that quite funny. They also have Kack, as in puke or sick.
Posted by: Badger on October 9th, 2006 at 4:39 am
“Oppai Choco (titties choco)” and “Ochinchin Choco (willy choco)”…eww!
those characters on the packaging are realllllly cute!
Posted by: sameer kulavoor on October 16th, 2006 at 7:43 pm
I tried some of these sweets as I travel a lot
Posted by: Charlie on October 17th, 2006 at 1:45 pm
We have those sponge bananas in Serbia too as long as I remember (and thats like almost 30 years).
Posted by: Keti on December 21st, 2006 at 6:38 am
japanese packagings are the best ones!!! and the inside r nice too! wish I could go there… T.T
Posted by: Princess G on May 11th, 2007 at 1:26 am
The first box you see is a product made by Astor Chocolate (www.astorchocolate.com) based in NJ, USA. This has been around for many years, and is still in production! They innovated the concept of molded chocolate souvenirs, which are now sold around the world mainly in airport gift shops.
Posted by: Yael on November 12th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
Is there a way at all to order or buy any of these sweets from America? In particular the Kamome No Tamago- a personal favorite.
I expect not, but can’t hurt to ask!
Posted by: Stephanie on December 1st, 2007 at 3:36 pm
I get Kamome no Tamago on a regular basis from my japanese friends. They know I love it. The same with Kibidango.
I even have a regional limited Hello Kitty Kamome no Tamago phone strap (influenced by the egg) from Iwate. :=)
http://gotochikitty.com/goods/chiikigentei/item/tohoku/11.html#kamomenotamago
In Finland we wrap sweets like everywhere in the West, but we do have one unique chocolate sweet that appears only for Easter, the Fazer Mignon egg.
Fazer is our biggest chocolate factory and over 100 years ago when Finland was still under Russia, this egg used to be handmade and distributed to the Russian czar every (Western) Easter.
The shell of the chocolate egg is a real chicken shell where they make a small hole into and empty the content and then they fill it with chocolate and seal with some sugar thing.
http://helsinki-finlande.blogs.marieclairemaison.com/media/00/01/b96ac075881858c830300d18a8d403ce.jpg
Posted by: Keti on September 19th, 2008 at 7:50 am