This tasty sweet is now easier to eat…but the edible package version is harder to find.
If you’ve done any amount of traveling in Japan then you know that every prefecture boasts its own unique kind of food. For Yamanashi Prefecture, home to the northern half of Mt. Fuji, one of their signature sweets is known as Kikyo Shingen Mochi. This rice cake is traditionally served in slices in a small, square plastic container, dusted with kinako soybean powder, topped with kuromitsu (brown sugar syrup), and eaten with a wooden toothpick-like utensil.
Shingen Mochi is a highly popular sweet that has even been turned into a popcorn flavor, but many complain that it’s hard to eat out of its plastic container since digging out bits of jiggly mochi from a flimsy plastic box with a wooden stick isn’t the easiest feat. Plus, unlike other mochi desserts, they come individually served in single-use plastic containers, which aren’t exactly eco-friendly. Luckily, the maker of Shingen Mochi, Kikyoya, has come up with a new way to serve it: in an edible container.
The box and the lid are both made of monaka, Japanese-style wafers which are typically served filled with red bean paste. This edible box lets you not only ignore the stick, since you could just take a bite out of the whole thing, but you also don’t have to worry about having anything to throw away after! It’s a win-win.
Fans of Kikyo Shingen Mochi were delighted with the new packaging:
“What a revolution!”
“Such a great idea!”
“Genius.”
“This is what we’ve all be looking for!”
“Now I can eat it in one bite.”
“Adding monaka to that already delicious flavor…It’s evolved into an exciting new sweet!”
The new version is called Kikyo Shingen Mochi Kiwami to distinguish it from the usual plastic-package version (which is still available for sale) and it became available on December 24. But beware: only a limited number of sets will be sold each day, and because it’s a high-demand item, customers are limited to one box of each size (it comes with either three or eight individual snacks). The packs are listed for 700 yen (US$6.10) for the three-pack or 1,800 yen for the eight-pack.
You can find the Kiwami version only in Yamanashi at Kikyoya stores in Ichinomiya, Kofu, and Kobuchizawa, so if you find yourself visiting the Yamanashi-based Fuji-Q Highland amusement park, make sure to take some time to make a pit stop at one of Kikyoya’s stores if you want to try it!
Source: Yahoo! News Japan via Twitter/@mokumecat via My Game News Flash, Kikyuya (1, 2)
Top image: Kikyoya
Insert image: Kikyoya
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