Doutor Coffee Japan’s cherry blossom drinks and snacks are a pretty pastel paradise

https://ift.tt/yJNx28M Shannon

The best way to get in the cherry blossom season mood? Food and drink.

While popular chains like Starbucks Japan opted for strawberry-flavored cherry blossom drinks this year, other spots have chosen the traditional sakura-flavored route. Japanese café chain Doutor Coffee has been holding their Cherry Blossom Matsuri since February 16. The festive lineup includes four drinks, delectable snacks, and pre-packaged coffee and sweets. Without further ado, here’s each item in the series:

▼ Sakura Au Lait Warabi Mochi (Iced) – 580 yen (US$4.25)

First up is the Sakura Au Lait Warabi Mochi, a milk-based drink that includes sakura petal paste to make its lovely pink color and flavor. It’s topped with whipped cream, arare puffed sweets, a sakura syrup swirl, and sakura-flavored chocolate bits.

▼ Sakura Au Lait (Hot) – 550 yen

This is the same as the iced drink but without the “warabi mochi” bit in the name. It includes the same sakura flavor, whipped cream, and other toppings.

▼ Sakura Green Tea Au Lait Warabi Mochi (Iced) – 580 yen

If you’re more of a matcha fan, you’ll love this one! It combines the subtly bitter and fresh-tasting Uji matcha powder with the subtle sweetness of sakura. It has the same toppings as the Sakura Au Lait.

▼ Sakura Green Tea Au Lait (Hot) – 550 yen

This one is the same as its iced green tea counterpart. Though they’re made with the same flavors, they offer different experiences based on their temperature!

We bet you’re waiting for the snack introduction, so here it is:

▼ Funwari Kaoru Sakura Cake – 480 yen

This cake was made to imitate the look of sakura, down to its leaves and different-hued petals. It has a layer of matcha-flavored and sakura-flavored sponge cake each, and in between is some tiramisu cream. It even has two little dollops of sakura-colored cream for a more realistic look.

▼ Mocchiri Sakura Dorayaki – 270 yen

This affordable snack combines the pancake-like dough of a dorayaki with sakura-flavored bean paste and Hokkaido-grown red beans. There are even real sakura leaves in the bean paste. It’s an excellently sweet treat to pair with your coffee or sakura-themed drink.

If you want some souvenirs or want to enjoy the goodness of Doutor at home, there are some takeaway goodies as well:

▼ Premium Roast Coffee Sakura – 1,170 yen for 200 grams of ground coffee, 480 yen for a five-pack drip coffee

This is the sixth year Doutor has released this seasonal sakura blend. Among the Ethiopian and Guatemalan beans are sakura chips to add a unique note to your coffee.

▼ Sakura Castella Made With Sakura Honey – 700 yen

This takeout-only snack includes five pieces of castella cake made in collaboration with Osaka-based Nagasaki-do, a bakery that’s been in business for over a century. Among its carefully selected ingredients is sakura-infused honey, and it also has the salty and tart bite of sakura leaves mixed in the dough.

▼ You can also buy the drip coffee and castella as a set for 1,100 yen!

All of these items are only sold in limited quantities, so don’t think twice. Enjoy the sakura before they even get here so you’ll be fully in the mood to see some beautiful blossoms starting mid-March.

Source and images: PR Times
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Eating all the cat treats at Japanese convenience store Family Mart

https://ift.tt/cNvQeMY Oona McGee

This cute collection covers everything from paw to tail. 

Japan has a tonne of special days on the calendar, dedicated to everything from maids to twintails and retort curry.

Even furry animals like cats have their own special day, so when Cat Day rolled around on 22 February, we had our eyes peeled for a way to celebrate. A quick visit to convenience store chain Family Mart served up the perfect solution: cat treats!

Dubbed “Family Nyato“, as a play on “Family Marto“, using the Japanese pronunciation of “mart” and the Japanese word for “meow” (“nya”), these treats are for humans, and we grabbed all ten of them for a taste test.

▼ First up, we have the Bread That Looks Like a Cat Paw (150 yen [US$1.10])

This was an impressive bread to behold — not only did it look like a paw, its plump and fluffy texture made it feel like a paw too!

Being about the size of a human palm, this was a fun treat to eat, and the milk cream filling added an indulgent sweetness to every bite.

▼ Next up, we have the Milk Paw Pad Bun (130 yen).

This was closer to a real-sized paw, and filled with a white bean paste that complemented the milk-flavoured dough beautifully. Soft, supple, and slightly squidgy, this was a cute and tasty way to pay homage to the cute cat paw.

▼ Latte Chocolate Cookie (118 yen)

Sometimes simple classics don’t need to be messed around with, and that was certainly the case here, with a pair of cat ears adding just the right amount of cuteness to this deliciously soft cookie.

▼ Caramel Roll Cake (160 yen)

Like the cookie, this roll cake kept things simple, focusing on classic flavours while adding an adorable touch with brown stripes that resembled the tail of a tabby cat.

▼ Caramel Milk Cream Sandwich (145 yen)

This long bread roll also uses the cat’s tail as its inspiration, adding caramel milk cream in between the folds for sweet bursts of deliciousness in between bites.

▼ Baked Cheesecake (220 yen)

This adorable product has been produced in collaboration with Coony, an illustrator specialising in cats, who has created four different cat designs for the packaging on this particular sweet.

Upon opening the package, we couldn’t help but let out a little squeal at the cute cat silhouette awaiting us inside. It was gorgeous to look at, and fantastic to eat, delivering bagfuls of rich, creamy flavour despite its tiny size.

▼ Chocolate Brownie (198 yen)

This was another cute-looking morsel, shaped like a feline but filled with moist, chocolate flavour that was absolutely delicious!

▼ Mofu Sandwich (225 yen)

“Mofu mofu” is the phrase used to describe something fluffy and soft to the touch, like a cat, and “Mofu Sand” is a brand by cat illustrator Juno.

▼ This treat comes branded with one of four designs by Juno and each pack includes an original sticker by the artist as well.

Smooth on the outside and soft and fluffy on the inside, this was a tasty sweet filled with milk cream.

▼ Cafe Latte Soufflé Pudding (328 yen)

This soufflé was so moist and juicy that it let out a tantalising hiss when we poked into it with a fork. Layered from the bottom with latte-flavoured pudding, followed by whipped cream, caramel sauce and the latte-flavoured soufflé, this was one of the tastiest of the bunch!

▼ Finally, we have a drink called Caramel Cream Nyatte (228 yen)

“Nya” means “Meow”, and it’s the sound you might be tempted to make upon seeing the cute cat ears atop the beverage.

The ears definitely helped this drink stand out from all the others in the fridge, and the milky caramel flavoured latte inside made every sip worth the calories.

In fact, the whole collection was worth the calories, as there wasn’t anything here that didn’t appeal to the eyes as well as the taste buds. The only downfall is the range isn’t available year-round so we won’t be able to bite into any tails or paws again until Cat Day next year!

Photos © SoraNews24
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Hokkaido company to start balloon ride service to the stratosphere

https://ift.tt/EBcub83 Master Blaster

Very topical.

I wasn’t expecting balloons to make a big comeback in 2023 but here we are talking all about them. And while they’ve certainly shown their effectiveness at dubious surveillance and intriguing UFO researchers, it’s important to remember the enormous recreational potential of gasbags.

That’s where Hokkaido startup Iwaya Giken comes in. On 21 February they opened applications for special tours of the Earth’s stratosphere in which travelers can float 25,000 meters (15 miles) into the sky on a balloon.

▼ These tours are a part of the engineering firm’s wider Open Universe space tourism project

The company has designed a special capsule that seats two for the journey. The T-10 Earther is made with a special plastic designed to handle the extreme temperature and pressure changes that occur with such a rise and also has a charming Tie-Fighter cockpit feel about it.

The initial rise takes two hours, after which about an hour is spent floating well above the altitude of commercial flights. Here you can see both outer space and the curvature of the Earth, making it the perfect gift for that special flat-earther in your life.

▼ Aw, who are we kidding? They’d probably just blame it on the round window.

Afterward, the 40-meter balloon descends and plops your capsule safely in the ocean for retrieval. The price is expected to be around 24 million yen (US$176,000) per person and flights are hoped to begin around December of this year.

A project of this scope had to have taken years of research and development, meaning that the timing of this announcement and the recent spate of news regarding high-altitude balloons being shot down must be largely coincidental. As a result, it seemed that only a few of the people who left comments online were keen to try it out.

“I’m not afraid of heights, but that’s a little above and beyond.”
“I wouldn’t go even if someone invited me and offered to pay.”
“Balloon? Aren’t those the things getting shot down recently?”
“This actually looks more fun than those other space rockets.”
“I don’t want the last thing I ever see to be a sidewinder missile.”
“Timing is everything.”
“Isn’t that what the Saiyans ride in?”

Granted, floating about in the airspace that North Korea likes to use as a missile shooting range is a little worrisome. On the other hand, it would be really cool to get a perspective on the world that few people ever have a chance to see firsthand.

I’ll let you know how it goes once SoraNews24 approves that 24-million-yen raise I requested. Fingers crossed!

Source: PR Times, NHK News Web, Hachima Kiko
Images: PR Times
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What makes this new Japanese convenience store chain better than 7-Eleven?

https://ift.tt/nZMIhmQ Oona McGee

This chain takes konbini food to a whole other level.

Japan is famous for its convenience stores, which sell everything from whiskey and fried chicken to pancake steamed buns.

While the top chains — Family Mart, Lawson, and 7-Eleven — tend to steal the spotlight from smaller ones like Mini Stop, Daily Yamazaki and New Days, we’ve been keeping an eye on a new contender, that some people are saying is even better than 7-Eleven.

▼ The chain is called “Sakura Mikura“, and it has sakura petals in its logo.

So what makes the chain so good? Well, on a recent trip to Gunma Prefecture, home to Sakura Mikura, our reporter Masanuki Sunakoma walked through the sliding doors to find out why this place is so special.

The chain, which opened in 2021, is run by Zensho Holdings, which operates some big names in the food industry, like the Sukiya beef bowl chain, the Hama Sushi conveyor belt sushi chain, and the Cocos family restaurant chain. The focus on food is evident in the presence of tables outside the store, an unusual sight at a konbini, where customers can enjoy a spot of alfresco dining.

The chain has grown from four to nine branches in just over a year, and they’re all located in Gunma Prefecture.

▼ According to the company, the “sakura” in the name aims to “bring smiles to the region, as the cherry blossoms do“.

There’s plenty to smile about here, because as soon as you enter the store, the first thing to catch your eye is the unusual “みくら食堂 (“Mikura Shokudo”or “Mikura Dining Hall”), which is what makes the chain so great.

Unlike Japan’s top convenience stores, where food options are lined up on shelves or in a display on the counter, the food at Sakura Mikura is on a whole other level. 

Diners here can order hot food in much the same way they would at a shokudo eatery, and what’s even better is the fact that it’s handmade in-store 24 hours a day, for ultimate freshness and flavour.

▼ Like eating at a fast food restaurant, but inside a convenience store.

The menu includes a wide variety of hearty, reliable favourites, like rice bowls, meat sauce pasta, and even motsunabe (offal hotpot).

Masanuki used the touch panel to order a Karaage Don (Japanese fried chicken rice bowl) for 518 yen (US$3.84). You can select dishes with or without toppings and either on their own or as part of a set, and once you’ve ordered, you simply pay for it at the cash register, along with any other products you pick up while browsing the aisles.

You’ll want to pick up some onigiri rice balls here, as they’re all made in-store rather than being trucked in from a large facility like the ones you get at the big chains.

Masanuki picked up a rice ball filled with Kishu Nanko Ume — nanko ume is the highest quality brand of ume, or Japanese plum, and Kishu, the old name for the region covering Wakayama and southern Mie, is one of the top producing areas — and he was thoroughly impressed by the quality and flavour.

Bursting with freshness, it was like a rice ball that his mother would’ve made for him at home when he was a child.

The Karaage Don was also a big hit with Masanuki. It contained three pieces of freshly fried chicken, which were crunchy and juicy, and the rice below was plump and delicious, nothing like the bland rice you get in bento boxes sold at big convenience stores like 7-Eleven.

▼ Like a freshly made bento from a bento shop!

Served with mayonnaise and seaweed flakes, this was a fantastic meal, and if Masanuki lived in Gunma, he’d happily eat rice bowls here every day.

Masanuki describes Sakura Mikura as “a bento shop combined with a convenience store”. It’s amazing that they serve food this good 24 hours a day, and Masanuki couldn’t help but ask the operators why they only operate in Gunma Prefecture.

The company told him that Sakura Mikura is currently in its “experimental stages“, which is why you can only find it in Gunma at the moment.

That’s all they would reveal to him, though, so Masanuki has his fingers tightly crossed for the possibility that they may expand into other areas soon. If Sakura Mikura were to open in his Tokyo neighbourhood, it would be way more exciting than the opening of a big-name chain, which, as we’ve seen before, is already pretty exciting.

So, the big convenience store chains better look out, because if this konbini makes inroads into other prefectures, they’ll have some serious competition on their hands!

Related: Sakura Mikura
Photos ©SoraNews24
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