Because A Mortal Song is set in Japan, in the month leading up to the book’s release I wanted to celebrate some of the amazing media out there by Japanese creators. I’ll be highlighting my favorite books, TV shows, and films (as well as some snack box services—you need something to munch on while you’re doing all that watching and reading!). You can find a full list of my faves and other resources here on my website.
Snack Subscription Box Review – Snakku
What you get: Unlike most of the Japanese subscription boxes, Snakku focuses on traditional treats like mochi and senbei by local snack-makers rather than big name, mass market brands. They offer a tasting box (within the US) to sample but only have a subscription for their one primary size of box, which is $39 (shipping free in the US and more to select other countries) and contains around 1kg of snacks. It ships from the US, but the owner was born in Japan and travels there regularly.
Review of the box:
I was very impressed by the packaging of the Snakku box, which was attractive and fitting with the traditional theme.
The box opened to reveal a pretty card and a very sharply designed guide to the snacks, including an explanation of the monthly theme, which was sakura (cherry blossom) season, as well as lots of snacks!
As before, I jotted down my thoughts on each of the snacks as I tried them out and gave them a rating out of 3 (0 = nope, 1 = all right, 2 = quite good, 3 = OMG where can I get more of this?).
Morihan Roll Crepe (pink = cream and cherry blossom, green = chocolate and green tea) – Both types of crepe had a delicate texture that I really enjoyed. I loved the flowery flavor of the pink ones, but the tea flavor was a little heavier than I liked with the green. Overall a 2.
Sakura Senbei – According to the guide, these crisp wafers were made with sakura, cooking sake, dried squid, and wheat. They were a little on the hard side and saltier than I’d expected, but did have a little of that flowery taste I enjoyed in the crepes, which as quite pleasant once I got used to the texture and saltiness. I could taste a little fishiness from the squid too! 2.
Kobe Sakura Cream Sandwich – These biscuit sandwiches were nicely sweet, with a subtle cherry blossom flavor I really enjoyed and a good balance of the cookies with the cream filling. 2.
Vegetable Yasai Boro (Spinach and Pumpkin) – Both sets of these little cracker balls were enjoyable crisp and sweet, almost melting in my mouth as I chewed them, but they had a bit of an odd, almost seaweed-y flavor and I didn’t really taste any pumpkin or spinach in them. 1.
Bourbon Green Tea Cookies – These cookies were like mini Oreos, if Oreos had green tea flavor in the icing. The cookie to filling ration was perfect and the chocolate in the cookies balanced out the green tea flavor (which I often find too bitter) nicely. I loved these! 3.
Baka Uke Sesame Cracker – Crunchy crackers with a good weight to them and a tasty, savory sesame flavor. 2.
Niigata Salt Senbei – These crackers had a nice crispy texture and a good amount of salt, but they were kind of plain tasting. 1.
Sake KitKat – I was a little apprehensive about trying these because I’m not usually a fan of the taste of alcohol, but while I could taste the sake, the coating was sweet enough to make it an enjoyable tang rather than annoyingly sour. Tasty with the usual KitKat crunch. 2.
Sakura Mochi – According to the guide, these fluffy mochi were hand made. Filled with sakura red bean paste, they had a lovely delicate flower flavor without being too sweet and a smooth texture. Yum! 3.
Kusagai Peach Gummy – These round gummies had a definite peach taste and a smooth chewy texture. I wasn’t sure how much I liked the flavor at first, but it grew on me and left an aftertaste very realistic to real peach. 2.
Overall thoughts: While I appreciated the snacks being so different from the other boxes I tried, the quantity of the snacks (there were both fewer types and they were smaller packages than other boxes) combined with this being the highest priced box even before shipping to Canada would make me hesitate to subscribe.
Overall snack rating: 20/30, 67%
Note: I received this box free in exchange for my honest review.
Join me next week for more recs! You can read more about A Mortal Song in the meantime:
