it's Spring and that means 桜 season~

Cherry blossom season has come and gone and I magically managed to miss all of the hanami parties that my friends and co-workers had.  Not too big of a deal really, to be perfectly honest the crowded parks get on my nerves a little.

fruit by the foot?

HOWEVER, as it is beautiful, lovely Spring here in Osaka, I will share some sakura themed sweets I picked up.


First up is the Sakuranbo and Peach flavored soda.
This is some  weird, fruit soda line by Sapporo that I have only ever found in Family Mart.  All of the flavors are very distinct in that they do not taste like what they're supposed to.  さくらんぼ translates to cherry (but in the edible sense) so I suppose this soda has one up on all of the vague 桜 (cherry tree) flavored stuff.  What the hell does a cherry tree taste like anyway?

At any rate, this particular combo comes off as tasting like a red Fruit by the Foot.


The next treat is this strangely colored Sakura Maccha Latte Kit Kat.  The love that Japan has for matcha (green tea) is intense and all consuming.  However when you get candy that is matcha flavored it never actually tastes like tea.

So this Kit Kat takes the ambiguous, not tea matcha candy flavor and mixes it with the non flavor that they call sakura...
Yeah, I made a weird face at it too...

While as a general rule, I actually hate matcha flavored anything, this was really good.  It tasted a bit like cinnamon and a vaguely chai type spice.  The color is a little bit off putting but I'm not sure that the classic sakura pink would have been much better.

In all, I enjoyed my six mini Kit Kats that came in the box and I MIGHT even buy them again, but they are long gone from the store by now and the convenience store is sadly bereft of strange flavored Kit Kat at the moment.  The soda is still there but really, finishing the one bottle was hard...after a few sips

Orange Coke?

Fanta makes all sorts of weird-o flavors here.  Funmix was only around for roughly a month and that's probably being nice and giving it some.

I'm not entirely positive who thought orange and cola was the way that Fanta needed to go but it's not entirely horrible.  The biggest problem with this is that you really can't taste any orange.

I feel like I bought a bottle of Big K brand cola and added a shit ton moreCO2.  

In all, definitely not their best flavor...but really, who can resist something named Funmix?

In other news, I spent entirely too much money on bath salts and Batman underwear today.  Also I have not been to でんでんタウン in months so, no blue rangers recently...I feel saddened by this.    

はちみつレモン？

Japan does weird things to Fanta.  Actually, just about everywhere but America does weird things to Fanta....



Let's rephrase:
Japan does weird things to soda.
(also acceptable to read as "Japan does weird things.")

So I'd like to introduce you to Honey and Lemon flavored Fanta.


I had heard stories of plain lemon Fanta.  They were magical tales of Lemonade with carbonation.  I am a huge fan of lemonade so I was beyond excited when I saw this unassuming bottle in the cooler upstairs at the 100 yen shop.
First thing's first, this does not taste like carbonated lemonade.  Imagine my disappointment.  It was pretty epic.
It does not, however, taste particularly bad.  Not much has ever earned the label bad from me though.


First taste and you're just thinking "Oh, this is bubbly, and lemony, and very very strange."  Not a bad start.  "Where's the honey flavor?" you wonder...then you hit the aftertaste.  "Is that...Ricola?  Or maybe Sucrets?"

This stuff is pretty much fizzy weirdness followed by a distinct liquid coughdrops flavor.
A lot of people do not appreciate this strange combination, but as I was the kid that ate Halls like candy, I kinda dig it.
Too bad that like most interesting drinks in Japan, this flavor was 限定 which loosely translates to "too bad if you like it we're only gonna sell it for roughly two weeks to a month and after that oh well 8DD"  I can't find it anymore...



Shit still doesn't taste like Honey.