Japanese vending machine at Haneda Airport serves up cute cotton candy for tourists

Tokyo Cotton Candy Shop is waiting to greet you upon arrival and bid you sayonara in a very kawaii way. 

One of the best places to find an unusual vending machine in Japan is at Haneda Airport. This is where you’ll find varieties that appeal to all sorts of customers, and one that recently caught our eye sells products from a store called Tokyo Wataame Honpo (Tokyo Cotton Candy Shop).

To find it, simply head to Haneda Airport Garden, a new dining, shopping and hot spring complex directly connected to Terminal 3, where international arrivals and departures are located.

▼ Haneda Airport Garden opened on 31 January.

After making your way through the spacious “Japan Promenade” shopping area, you’ll arrive at an open section.

Head to the second floor, and you’ll find the vending machine in the “Haneda Sando” area, where Japanese souvenirs and sundries are sold.

The cotton candy machine is stocked with six different flavours (clockwise from top left in the photo below):

・Chocolate Mint
・Chocolate Banana
・Strawberry Milk
・Crackling Rainbow
・Unicorn
・Shine Muscat Grape

▼ Each variety contains three packs in an adorable box and is reasonably priced, at 350 yen (US$2.53).

We wanted to buy them all, but settled on three to try out: Chocolate Mint, Chocolate Banana, and Crackling Rainbow.

▼ How cute is the packaging?

The designs aim to bring a smile to your dial, with puns on the side of the box as well. One pun reads, “Niji ga totemo kireinbow!“, which combines the word “kirei” (“beautiful”) with “rainbow” for a cute twist on the sentence that translates as: “Rainbows are so beautiful!”

Opening up the chocolate mint variety, we immediately fell in love with the beautiful look of the candy, which resembled a cute cloud. This not-too-sweet cotton candy had the refreshing aroma of bitter chocolate and mint, which was an ideal taste for choc-mint-loving grown-ups.

The Chocolate Banana looked equally gorgeous, with its yellow-hued cotton candy covered with colourful sprinkles. This was a fruity concoction that had a similar flavour to chocolate-coated bananas sold at Japanese festival stalls, making this a good souvenir for families with children.

The Crackling Rainbow was beautifully colourful, with a cola-like taste and sweet bits that crackled in the mouth like popping candy. The crackling was quite strong, and persisted for a while after eating, so this one may not be so great for small children or those with an aversion to stimuli.

These cotton candies are perfectly packaged for travellers, with packets of desiccant in each box to keep them fresh for several days. If you’re not making your way through Haneda Airport, you can also purchase the cotton candies at a number of machines installed in places such as Tokyo, Chiba, Miyagi and Okinawa prefectures — the link to machine locations can be found below.

They certainly make for a beautiful souvenir, and if you’re looking for more unusual vending machine sweets at the airport, don’t forget to try the one that sells cakes resembling onigiri rice balls!

Related: Tokyo Cotton Candy Shop
Photos © SoraNews24
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