Featured

mikan

Cat kotatsu let your feline friends relax through winter the Japanese way【Photos】

Kitty-sized furniture comes bundled with a huge supply of winter snacks for their human caretakers.

Read More

Capybaras celebrate winter in luxurious mikan bath【Photos】

Hot springs aren’t only for humans.

Read More

Hamster chills out in mandarin orange skin, looks adorable 【Video】

If I saw this inside my mikan, I don’t think I’d be angry.

Read More

Japanese Twitter falls in love with unusual vending machine in Akihabara

There’s good reason why people from around Tokyo are making the trip to Electric Town to get a taste of these special beverages.

Read More

Twitter user finds incredibly clever way to reuse Japanese capsule toy containers

Sure, the toys are cool, but it turns out their cases can be pretty useful too.

Read More

Japanese mandarin-orange-flavored potato chips make a comeback!

Enjoy the crisp, salty taste of potato chips with a blast of…mandarin orange?

Read More

Hay fever got you down? Cheer up, you get to eat some yogurt with orange peels!

Ah, spring: that season which is supposed to be a pleasantly warm and sunny break from the bitter cold instead makes millions of allergy sufferers feel like they have invisible daddy longlegs of fire crawling across their faces 24/7.

From masks to medicine, there are plenty of products on the market to combat the symptoms and reduce exposure to the evil, evil pollen, but they all encumber your freedoms by blocking your vision or clouding your mind. However, a new, all-natural method of subduing allergic reactions was presented at a meeting of the Japan Society for Bioscience, Biotechnology and Agrochemistry, and best of all it uses easy to find ingredients: Yogurt and mikan (tangerine) peels.

Read More

Net user recreates Japan’s islands and prefectures in this twist on a winter tradition

New Year’s in Japan is a quiet affair. While the holiday period is usually spent with family, enjoying traditional food and activities, there’s one particular pastime that brings the family together in a special way every winter. To indulge in this very Japanese affair, you’ll need two of the items pictured in the image above. Can you guess what they are?

Read More

Next time you eat an orange, why not make it into an orange caterpillar first?

During the winter months Japanese people often like to relax under their heated tables (kotatsu) and enjoy a nice mikan tangerine. Its juicy sweetness and vitamin C is a great compliment to these chilly nights. But really, anywhere in the world, anytime is a good time to enjoy some variation of orange, isn’t it?

So next time you get ready to peel a mandarin or clementine how about making it into a caterpillar first like many Twitter users in Japan have been doing in recent years? It’s super easy and we’re going to show you how.

Read More


Have a rice cake! Have a tangerine! Why not have both with the visually stunning mikan daifuku?

Eating sweet tangerines, or mikan as we call them here, while snuggled in a warm kotatsu table is a favorite winter pastime in Japan. (And believe us when we say it becomes a struggle to leave the comfortable warmth of the kotatsu for anything short of a grave emergency.)

Well, thanks to Japanese confection maker Akasaka Aono, you can now enjoy winter tangerines in a slightly unique form. They’ve wrapped a whole tangerine inside a soft daifuku rice cake! Now, that’s certainly an unusual presentation for a daifuku, so it’s not surprising that the Japanese public has taken notice, and since we’re always on the lookout for interesting foods, one of the reporters from our Japanese sister site Pouch promptly tried the cake to give all of us a first hand account. Let’s hear what she had to say about the unique tangerine and mochi confection!

Read More

Mikan flavored potato chips sound gross, but may actually be genius marketing

We recently brought you a round-up of some of the weirdest snack foods available in Japan, and now we’re about to add another one to the bag – Mikan (Japanese Tangerine) flavored potato chips! Such a flavor may seem shocking, even deviant to some of us western folks, but there’s a clear marketing strategy behind these new tangy treats that’s bound to result in success in the Japanese market. See if you can guess what it is, then join us after the jump to find out if you were right!

Read More

Orange-flavored rice balls: Japan’s newest way to fuse vitamin C and carbs

Ehime Prefecture on the western coast of Shikoku is known all through Japan for its tasty mikan, or satsuma oranges. Although the fruit is delicious enough on its own, the people of Ehime love to think up new ways to enjoy the fresh taste of a local orange. In the past, we have seen funny-shaped oranges and even citrus-flavored fish, but now there’s a new way to get some vitamin C in your life: orange-flavored rice balls.

We dropped by a shop near the hot springs that inspired Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away which sells the rice balls. But these little delicacies are only available for a limited time, so click below to find out more about this surprisingly delicious culinary creation!

Read More

Truck spills its load over road in rural China, pilfering locals ordered away at gunpoint

You’ve probably heard the story before: a truck carrying fish, grapes or some other foodstuff overturns on a rural road in China; minutes later dozens of people are on the scene shoving as much of it as they can into plastic bags. Often the people filling their pockets are simply living in poverty and, laws be damned, aren’t going to miss the chance to procure some free food, making it difficult to condemn them.

This time, when a truck spilled its cargo on a road in Lanzhou, China, authorities were on the scene in a flash to stop the mob of villagers that had quickly descended on the scattered fruit. When the police felt the need to start pointing guns at women old enough to be their grandmothers, however, it certainly raised a few eyebrows online.

Read More

How to peel an orange: Is mikan art the new origami?

When it comes to Japanese handicrafts, almost everyone has heard about the amazing shapes achievable with origami. But how many people are familiar with Japanese orange peel art?

In the cold winter months, it’s an unspoken tradition for Japanese people to curl up under a kotatsu (heated table with a blanket thrown over it) and eat mikan (Mandarin oranges). However, many people have found that just eating these winter treats is not enough to satisfy them, and cutting away the peel into complex shapes has become a common art form. You’ll be amazed by the creatures that can come to life from a single orange peel!

Read More