Wonka-san, welcome to the Towers - for real.

I know people are waiting for the Wonkatastic new film, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", but I'd point people to look out East - the joys of wild and wonderful confectionary already exist in Japan.... and now in my house. For all the things in the film, some of this stuff matches it in every way.

As some of you may know, I recently sold my car. Actually you *all* should know as it was in this very Blog. In order to deflect feelings of guilt something had to give.

I thought I'd treat myself to a visit over at jbox.com, a route into the oft baffling world of the Japanese world, and it's inner sanctum of sweets and treats. I've always been interested in everything over there, from the social etiquette through to cinema, and the food and drink through to the music. The chance to sample some of it for real was far too tempting.

So, just under two weeks later, the parcels arrived in perfect condition here at The Towers.



Between them were pastries, biscuits, candies, drinks and gums. Most would have baffled me if it wasn't for the very detailed descriptions on the site - trust me, the pics on the front of most of the packets convey about 10% of what's inside.

Here's the full list, in all it's fantastic glory:-


Toppo -- Baked Chocolate Snack
Petit Soup Bread Snack -- Minestrone
Lotte Black Black Gum
Glico Maple & Butter Pretz w/Cinamon Sugar Pack
Pocari Sweat Powder
Meiji 100% Grape Juice Gummi
100% Juice Gummy -- Green Apple
March of Koala -- Melon Soda Cream
Morinaga Okinawa Black Sugar Caramel
Mugi Cha (Barley Tea) - 52 cold water tea bags
Lotte Pie no Mi -- Custard Pudding
Meiji Mini Assortment -- 5 Set of Various Candy Box
Sugarless Green Tea Mint Candy ~ Nodo Ame
Bourbon Petit Snack - Fried Mayonnase Rice Cracker
Ci-Ma Puccho -- Muscat
Sweet Green Tea Aulet
Mikakutoh 'Hero' Shigekix -- Victory Cola Flavor
Mikakutoh Charcoal Roasted Coffee Candy
Morinaga Green Tea Caramel
Matcha Ame -- Green Tea Candy


It's the invention and flair for combining the least obvious things in the world that catches my eye. Where else could you find "Minestrone", "Black Sugar" or "Fried Mayonaise" as flavours ?

Also the packaging alone deserves plaudits - it's colourful, unique and very eye-catching. I've picked a few examples for you to feast your eyes on - whilst I get to feast on the real thing ;o)









I've so far tried a couple of small cubes of the green tea candy. They're chewy like Starburst but tasting of freshly brewed Chun Mee tea. Also the genius Fried Mayonaise crackers. Even just opening the packet gave out a warm, savoury smell to make the mouth water. Whether you can actually fry mayo in the first place is a bit of a pointless question. It works and it works damn well.

Ray, you're lucky and will get to taste some when I grab a few samples for the office on Friday, but the rest of you will have to just imagine what's inside the packs.

Actually, having opened a couple, that's really not going to be easy ;o)