Japanese Candy from Matcha, Chocolate, & Gum

Every time that I visit the Mitsuwa Marketplace in Edgewater, New Jersey, I have goals. I want to have a nice Japanese lunch (and it’s difficult to pick between the tendon bowl and the ramen). I want to do some grocery shopping. Finally, I want to select a few different types of Japanese candy to try. Preferably matcha flavored sweets. It can be especially difficult to know what exactly you are getting with some of the sweets if you can’t read Japanese. So I wanted to share a few of the treats that I’ve picked up over the course of several trips to Mitsuwa.

There are so many options when it comes to Japanese candy! Plain chocolate bars, hard cookies, soft cookies, hard candy, chewing gum. All sorts of varieties for every taste and preference. And from my experience, Japanese candy and desserts tend to not be overly sweet and the portions are on the smaller side. Perfect for sampling…or just eating the whole box.

We all know Japanese candies like Pocky or Kit Kats with Japanese flavors (the green tea and sweet potato varieties are on my “to try” list!). But here are a few you might want to look out for. Most utilize matcha green tea from Uji, Kyoto.

Quattro

Part cookie and part candy, Quattro are bite-sized and individually wrapped. They’re composed of four layers: a crisp Uji matcha cookie biscuit, a layer of semi-bitter sweet chocolate, a thin layer of Uji matcha ganache filling, and then it is all topped off with Uji matcha green tea chocolate.

Dars Uji Matcha

Dars chocolate bars are available in a variety of flavors. The Uji matcha flavor is a single bar of chocolate segmented into pieces you can break off. The outside of the bar is chocolate and the inside is Uji matcha chocolate. While it might seem like a traditional bar of chocolate, the matcha inside adds a fun twist.

Bourbon Alfort Mini Green Tea

Alfort‘s are another cookie-chocolate match up. Bourbon combines chocolate cookies with a piece of green tea chocolate.

Lotte Crunky Crunch Chocolate Green Tea

Talk about a name that says what it is. Lotte’s Crunky is a bar of matcha chocolate full of malt puff. With Western chocolates that use puffed rice, it is usually more about texture than taste. But with Crunky, you can really get a smoky taste. If you like genmaicha tea, this is a candy you will want to try. It is easy to be fooled into thinking you’re eating rice and not wheat.

Meiji Meltyblend Green Tea

These sugar cube-sized candies are individually wrapped. On the outside, Meltyblend green tea are chocolate, but inside they are matcha. Kind of like a truffle. While Meiji is a Chinese company and not Japanese. But as a matcha chocolate, I had to share.

Marukawa Bubble Gum

While not matcha related, this bubble gum is too fun to ignore. Each box of Marukawa bubble gum contains four small gumballs. The chewing gum comes in really great flavors like melon, orange, and strawberry.

What’s your favorite Japanese candy? Share in the comments below!

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