Now I’ve seen through it all.

The temperature has been steadily rising in Japan, and with these exceptionally hot and muggy days, it can be hard to work up an appetite. Luckily, Japanese cuisine has learned to adapt, with dishes like hiyashi men that can fill bellies in a refreshing way.

From 2 July, convenience store chain Family Mart is offering a snack that can help people cope with muggy malaise. It’s a light snack and you really don’t get much lighter than a snack that allows the visible spectrum of light to pass through it, as is the case with See-Through Pudding? (Tomei Purin?) for 190 yen (US$1.18).

This “pudding” is technically the Japanese version known as “purin” which is more of an egg-based flan with caramel sauce. However, the question mark and fact that it’s completely transparent should tip you off that this is neither pudding nor purin.

Upon peeling off the top it’s easy to tell from the loose jiggle that this is your standard jelly, not unlike the kind made by Jell-O or those Japanese water cakes that make waves on social media every once in a while. However, it does come with a pack of caramel sauce to give it that authentic purin feel.

I tore open the caramel packet and poured it on top, only to find that it too was almost completely see-through, aside from a very slight brownish tinge. It also had a noticeably strong aroma of caramel to it, compared to the purin jelly which didn’t really smell like anything.

As for the taste, the sauce did much of the heavy lifting again and gave the entire snack a feeling of purin. On the other hand, the jelly didn’t taste like much at all and was rather watery. That sounds a lot worse than it actually was though, because the day I ate this was extremely humid and the watery jelly was really refreshing.

That being said, it was so watery that I had trouble picking it up with the paddle-like spoon the clerk gave me. I’d recommend using a proper spoon at home if possible since it cuts down on plastic use too.

In conclusion, to answer the question posed by the product name: No, this is not pudding or purin. It is jelly but it’s also a great bit of relief on those days when it’s just too hot to eat and also a quirky little snack that purin fans might want to try for the novelty.

Photos ©SoraNews24
● Want to hear about SoraNews24’s latest articles as soon as they’re published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!