Twentythree

Mont Blanc The Hakuzan is a sweets shop so nice it’s named twice.

Tokyo Station isn’t just one of the most important places in the city for travelers and commuters, but for sweets fans too. Both within the station itself and inside the attached Daimaru department store are an array of dessert specialty stores, and we’ve been wanting to try one of them for months now.

Make no mistake, the reason we haven’t yet tried the desserts from Mont Blanc The Hakuzan, which opened in October, has nothing to do with willpower to resist the temptations of desserts, as such psychological fortitude is in very limited supply at SoraNews24. No, the reason it took us half a year to do this taste test is because of how incredibly popular the place is, and thus how hard it is to actually buy their desserts.

See that “sold out” sign in above photo? Notice how nicely made it is, as opposed to being a handwritten notice that the staff needed to suddenly make? That’s because they know that their entire batch of Mont Blanc, the candied chestnut dessert that’s the store’s specialty, is going to sell out on a daily basis.

We’ve walked by The Hakuzan (as we’ll call the store for short, seeing as how both “Hakuzan” and “Mont Blanc” mean “white mountain”) plenty of times since it opened, but never at a time when we could get our hands on one of the coveted desserts. When we rolled up on a recent Sunday afternoon, just as we’d expected, all of the Mont Blanc that had been stocked that morning at 10 a.m. were gone. But that was OK, because we’d gotten to the shop at around 4:30, and there’s a second batch that comes out at 5 p.m.

This was what we were aiming for, but even then, it turned out we’d cut things very close. The Hakuzan sells its Mont Blancs in boxes that contain two servings for 1,980 yen (US$13), and they limit each customer to a maximum of two boxes. However, they only make 30 boxes per batch, so it’s possible that as few as only 15 customers will be able to buy any, and there were already about 20 people waiting ahead of us in line.

Thankfully, to help with crowd control at around 4:50, the staff asks how many boxes each person in line plans to buy, so they could guarantee us the single box we wanted, and gave us a purchase placard, shown in the photo above (note, though, that you still have to wait in line – leave the line, and your voucher will be voided).

Mont Blanc gets its name because it’s supposed to look like a mountain covered in snow, but a lot of stores and cafes shape theirs like a mound, closer to a hill. The Hakuzan’s version, though, really does look a steep-sided mountain, and we couldn’t wait to dig in…except actually, we had to wait. The Hakuzan’s Mont Blanc comes frozen, and they recommend a total thawing time of six hours (combined getting it home and then putting it in your refrigerator) for the optimal texture.

That’s a longer deferment of gratification than we usually like, but after waiting a little more than six months to try this, another six hours wasn’t going to kill us. And when the Mont Blanc finally was ready to eat, our patience was handsomely, and deliciously, rewarded.

Starting at the top, our fork passed through creamy candied chestnut paste, whipped cream, and a base of crunchy merengue, and there’s a nicely sized chestnut in the middle too. This is, without question, a sweet dessert, but not in an overly sugary or oily way, and the touch of rum The Hakuzan uses gives its Mont Blanc a mature, elegantly quality as well.

So yes, we’re happy to report that the 30 minutes we spent standing in line for The Hakuzan’s Mont Blanc was well worth it. At the same time, we realize that not everyone has space for that in their schedule, and we ourselves might have lucked out by happening to visit on a less-crowded-than-usual Sunday, and on busier days getting there even 30 minutes before the batch comes out might not be early enough. Currently The Hakuzan only has this single shop inside the Tokyo Station Daimaru, so it’s not like you can cut down the waiting time by going to a more remote branch, either.

If you want to get a taste of this dessert without lining up, though, there is a way to do it, as on the 20th of every month, online Mont Blanc pre-orders start for the following month. Granted, that means you’ll actually be waiting weeks, not minutes or hours, for your Mont Blanc, but as least you won’t have to be standing in line the whole time.

Shop information
Mont Blanc The Hazizan / 店名　モンブランTHE珀山
Located inside Daimaru Tokyo / 大丸東京
Address: Tokyo-to, Chiyoda-ku, Marunouchi 1-8-9
東京都千代田区丸の内1丁目8-9
Open 10 a.m.-8 p.m.
Website

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

Rock shochu and reggae shochu really do taste different from each other.

The island of Amami Oshima is part of Kagoshima Prefecture, and Kagoshima is usually pictured as making up the southwest tip of the island of Kyushu, one of Japan’s four main islands. Amami Oshima, though, is far, far away from the Kyushu coastline, so far away that the ferry from Kagoshima City takes 13 hours to get there.

▼ The route from Kagoshima City to Amami Oshima, which can alternatively be reached by plane from Tokyo in two and a half hours.

With its remote location, Amami Oshima is famous for its lush mangrove forests, beautiful beaches, and clear, sparkling ocean waters.

Oh, and it’s also famous for shochu, a distilled spirit with longstanding cultural connections to southwest Japan. Specifically, Awaji Oshima’s kokuto shochu, made with rice and brown sugar, is highly prized, and so on our recent visit to the island we didn’t just want to drink some, but also see how it’s made.

We lucked out when we contacted Nishihira Shuzo, an Amami Oshima shochu maker that’s been in business for 99 years, and they said they could offer us a tour of the facility, and a tasting too, with some very unique beverages to sample.

▼ The rustic exterior of the Nishihira Shuzo distillery

Despite being around for nearly a century, Nishihira Shuzo is still a family-run operation, and we were told that the fourth-generation owner of the business would be our guide. With shochu being a high-alcohol drink with an old-school vibe, our mental knee-jerk reaction was to expect a stern-looking, silver-bearded gentleman, but instead we were warmly greeted by Serena Nishihira and her friendly smile.

▼ Serena Nishihira

In addition to being a skilled shochu distiller and businesswoman, Nishihira is also a musician, which is something that’ll come into play later on. To start, though, she led us into the distillery’s production area.

As mentioned above, Nishihira Shuzo’s shochu is made from rice, so steaming the grains is the first step in making it. The distillery has a gigantic cylinder-shaped apparatus that’s used for washing and steaming, with a typical batch using about 400 kilograms (882 pounds) of rice.

Once the rice is cooked, it’s taken out of the drum and sprinkled with koji, a fermentation-triggering type of mold that’s also used in making sake. The rice is then put on racks in a temperature-controlled environment for its initial fermentation.

The next morning, the rice is put into jars with yeast and water to ferment for an additional five days. This isn’t a step that all shochu makers include in their process, but Nishihira Shuzo says it’s a key element of theirs.

After its time in the pot, the mixture is transferred into tanks and combined with liquified brown sugar, then given another two weeks to ferment.

That produces the fermented mash which is then distilled.

But that doesn’t mean Nishihira Shuzo can whip up a whole batch of kokuto shochu, start to finish, in just three weeks, because the final step (before bottling) is to age the shochu in tanks for at least one full year.

From a 400-kilogram load of rice, Nishihira Shuzo can produce roughly 800 1.8-liter (60.9-ounce) bottles of shochu. Luckily for us, some of those bottles end up in the distillery’s tasting room, which was the next place that Nishihira led us to.

The tasting room has chairs, a projector, and a screen set up for use for group events or musical performances, but we had the place to ourselves on this day.

Nishira poured us a selection of the company’s products, and we found them all extremely enjoyable. But just when we thought things couldn’t get any better, she led us through a door at the back of the room where we saw this.

Those are shochu barrels with speakers attached to them. And not some little mini speakers that you might have set up in your kitchen to listen to tunes while you cook, but concert-size amps!

This is where the Nishihira’s Sonic Aging Project takes place. While the speakers were quiet as we looked at them, Nishihira turns all of them on when the distillery starts its shift for the day, and has them play for eight hours. Different amps play different genres of music, with a total of six styles: house, reggae, hip-hop, Latin, rock, and shima uta, or Japanese southern island folk songs.

“We play the music at high volumes,” Nishihira explained, “Depending on the genre, the music produces different vibrations within the barrels, and we want to see how that affects the shochu.”

▼ The shima uta barrel

Like we said, Nishihira is a musician, so at first the idea of playing music for the shochu sounded like a whimsical, creative, but ultimately inconsequential idea. Nishihira, says, though, that with the barrels being music-treated for roughly 2,000 hours in a year, it really does make a difference.

Genres with more bass produce stronger vibrations in the barrel, and also with the shochu itself. That increased interplay between the container and its contents causes the wood to have a more significant influence on the color and flavor of the shochu that’s aging inside.

To prove this, Nishihira ushered us up to the second floor of the tasting area to try some of the Sonic Aging Project series.

Out of the six music genres, Nishihira says that reggae produces the strongest vibrations, and shima uta the softest. So we definitely wanted to taste those two, and she also poured us some of the rock shochu, which is somewhere between the other two in the spectrum.

And you know what? We really could taste the difference! The reggae shochu was darker in color and had a rich flavor with some notable bitter notes from the wood. The shima uta shochu, meanwhile, was lighter in color and sharper in taste, with a more pronounced sensation of alcohol. The rock shochu, sure enough, was a mid-point between the more distinct characteristics of the reggae and shima uta.

So which of the Sonic Aging Project shochu styles is the best? There’s actually no answer to that, Nishihira says. Just like your favorite musical genre is a matter of personal taste, so too will different people have different rankings for how much they like the different types Sonic Aging Project shochu, and they’ve all got their own unique charms.

Reservations for Nishihira Shuzo tours can be made through their website here, but if you can’t make it all the down to Amami Oshima, they also offer their shochu, including the Sonic Aging series, through their online store here.

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

Why go to Starbucks when you can find hidden gems like this at a locally born chain?

Are you a Chokomintou supporter? If you are, then you will be gearing up for a very busy, and refreshing, summer in Japan, because Chokomintou means “Choco Mint Tou”, where “tou” (“political party”) humorously refers to the chocolate mint party, a faction despised by some and strongly supported by others.

Choc mint is certainly a divisive flavour combination, but here in Japan, where summers can be excruciatingly hot and brutal, it’s become immensely popular, so much so that “Chokomintou” quickly became a common term, with people proudly declaring their support for it.

This summer, those supporters are being treated to a whole slew of new treats, and one that’s currently causing a stir is the Chocolate Mint Shake from Japanese coffeehouse chain Tully’s.

This beverage is so thick it’s more like a drinkable ice cream than a shake, but what makes it even more special is the fact that you can request extra mint, making it one of the strongest mint-to-chocolate drinks on the market.

▼ The Chocolate Mint Shake retails for 790 yen (US$4.98).

The blue-green hues will immediately refresh your mind when you lay your eyes on the shake, and the pop of contrasting colour with the bright orange straw is another nice visual touch. The topping of chocolate shavings adds another accent in colour and, as it turns out, texture.

We ordered our shake with extra mint, and the resulting flavour was super minty, hitting the taste buds with an invigorating freshness. Thankfully, there was no “toothpaste-like” taste that’s sometimes evident in chocolate mint products – it was purely a fresh mint zing that paired beautifully with the chocolate, all wrapped up in a rich and creamy, ice cream-like texture. It was a delightful sensation, and the occasional crunch of the chocolate shavings added a nice surprise in between mouthfuls.

It was such an exquisite balance between mint and chocolate that we’d describe it as the golden ratio of choc mint. It’s by far the best chocolate mint product we’ve ever tasted, and so good it has the power to move a chocomintou fan to tears.

As a home-grown coffeehouse that tends to sit in the shadow of Starbucks, Tully’s is often coming out with unusual releases to stay in the competition. The Chocolate Mint Shake is a great example of that, and a good reminder that sometimes the best finds can be found in the shadows.

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

One flavor still rules the nation.

For the last five years, Baskin-Robbins Japan (colloquially known as “31”) has been holding an annual Flavor Election that petitions fans of its ice cream to vote for their top flavors to discover the nation’s favorite.

Out of a possible 1,400 original flavors that could have been potentially chosen from across the 53 years it has been operating in Japan, Baskin-Robbins narrowed down the contenders to the top 100, based on their own data, for fans to vote on and determine the tops spots in popularity.

Starting with the overall top five, the tallies are:

• 5. Strawberry Cheesecake – 28,593 votes
• 4. Jamoca Almond Fudge – 30,190 votes
• 3. Burgundy Cherry – 31,163 votes
• 2. Cotton Candy – 31,509 votes
• 1. Love Potion 31 – 69,318 vote

With more than double the amount of votes as second place, this year’s runaway champion is Love Potion 31, a flavor poised to make you fall in love with it thanks to a delightful mix of raspberry and white chocolate ice cream with chocolate heart accents.

▼ Caramel Ribbon, Strawberry Cheesecake, Cookies and Cream, Dainagon Azuki, Love Potion 31, Very Berry Strawberry

One of the charms of Baskin-Robbins is the rotating limited-edition menu, with new and exciting flavors available each season, necessitating regular visits for anyone with even a hint of a sweet tooth. The most popular among the limited-edition flavors are:

• 5. Daiquiri Ice – 15,520 votes
• 4. Magical Mint Night – 17,522 votes
• 3. 31 All Stars – 18,646 votes
• 2. Burgundy Cherry – 31,163 votes
• 1. Cotton Candy – 31,509 votes

While Cotton Candy was second in the limited-time category in last year’s poll, this year the sweet cotton candy ice cream rose to the top of this sub-section for the first time, with Baskin-Robbins’ cherry ice cream with rich cherry chunks a very close second.

▼ Burgundy Cherry, Cotton Candy, Tea Au Lait, Strawberry Royal Milk Tea, Mandarin Orange Cheesecake, White Tiramisu

Of course, with so many new flavors making appearances each year, there are naturally promising newcomers who are looking to build their fanbase. The flavors that have overtaken their fellow new counterparts in the poll this year are:

• 5. Berry Meets Pistachio – 3,648 votes
• 4. White Tiramisu – 4,931 votes
• 3. Mandarin Orange Cheesecake – 5,099 votes
• 2. Strawberry Royal Milk Tea – 5,772 votes
• 1. Melty Strawberry Chocolate – 7,926 votes

Melty Strawberry Chocolate is a mouthwatering addition to Baskin-Robbins’s offerings that’s a mix of a chocolate and strawberry ice creams, further blended with a ribbon of strawberry sauce and chocolate chunks to balance its sweet and slightly sour elements.

This time around, Baskin-Robbins has introduced a new category: Double. The option of choosing two flavors and enjoying double the deliciousness is a highly recommended way to experience the ice cream at Baskin-Robbins, so what better way to find out the next combination to try than learning other people’s pairing of choice.

The top picks for Doubles are:

• 5. Chocolate Mint and Popping Shower – 5,872 votes
• 4. Strawberry Cheesecake and Popping Shower – 7,052 votes
• 3. Caramel Ribbon and Popping Shower – 8,132 votes
• 2. Cotton Candy and Popping Shower – 12,590 votes
• 1. Love Potion 31 and Popping Shower – 35,202 votes

Considering how popular Love Potion 31 was found to be, it comes as no surprise that a combination featuring it has reached first place with close to three times the votes as second place.

However, the list also has what might seem like an anomaly: every choice in the top five includes the Popping Shower, a flavor of mint ice cream with popping candy pieces mixed in. In fact, it was in every combination in the Top 9. Seeing the mint and chocolate ice cream, mixed with popping candy, featured so often, it is a testament to how beloved the flavor is. In total, Popping Shower enters the top 50 list a total of 19 times, including seventeenth place where it is paired with itself, so its popularity is without question. The fact remains, though, that it does not show up at all in the 100 flavors in the single category. So, why is that?

▼ The legendary Popping Shower

Well, Popping Shower is simply too popular. After its inclusion in the first-ever poll, where it absolutely crushed the competition, it was determined that any future poll would similarly be dominated by Popping Shower, so it was ceremoniously retired into the Hall of Fame and removed from the candidate list from the second poll onwards, giving the other flavors a shot at the glory of being crowned champion. Popping Shower was allowed special entry into the Double category where it demonstrated that its dominance over other flavors has not diminished at all with time.

As a result of the poll, Baskin-Robbins Japan have pledged to turn the overall winner Love Potion 31 into an original keychain to be given to 31 winners selected by lottery from those who voted for it. They also promise to re-release the top three limited-edition flavors in 2027, so keep your eyes peeled for their return. In addition, there will also be gift cards, all-you-can-eat event vouchers, and variety box vouchers up for grabs in the lottery for those who participated in the poll. If you want to be in a chance for winning, keep checking for news of the poll next year.

With the frequently rotating menu, the best time to visit Baskin-Robbins is: always. However, if you don’t eat ice cream very often, but still want to see what all the fuss is about, you can’t go wrong with getting a Double with this year’s champion, Love Potion 31, and the eternal king Popping Shower.

Related: Baskin-Robbins Japan
Source: Baskin-Robbins Japan, PR Times via Golden Times
Images: PR Times
● Want to hear about SoraNews24’s latest articles as soon as they’re published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!

Lotte’s canned water makes its convenience store debut.

The first time you take a look at the drink section in a Japanese convenance store, you might be surprised by some of the packaging, specifically the things that you can buy in cans. Canned coffee and cocktails can be found in pretty much every convenience store in the country, and while not as common, canned teas aren’t all that shocking to see here either.

But even we were surprised to find out that 7-Eleven Japan now sells canned water.

The Day is a brand of canned water from Lotte, who’s best known as a candy and snack food maker. They’re now in the water game too, though, and while the black-can The Day is carbonated, the red version isn’t.

▼ The Day went on sale through online shops and discount retailers in September, but just made its convenience store debut at 7-Eleven on May 5.

The visual design looks more like something you’d see for an energy drink or beer, and the contrast feels even more pronounced when you see The Day next to other brands of water, which tend to go with nature imagery and transparencies as their main visual motifs.

Lotte says they chose The Day’s name to symbolize its concept as “a water that lifts your spirts” and will give you a great day. There are no additional energy boosting chemicals or supplements added, though. The Day is simply canned natural mineral water, sourced from the town of Yaizu in Shizuoka Prefecture, according to the can’s text.

▼ And yes, we did accidentally drop this can on our way back from 7-Eleven, leading to the first time in our lives that we can say that we dented our water.

Once back in our taste-testing center, we cracked open the non-sparkling The Day for a comparison with Suntory’s Tennensui, one of Japan’s most popular bottled water brands.

Oddly enough, while the red-can The Day is supposed to be the non-sparkling variety, after we poured some into a glass we did still see some air bubbles. Not so many that we’d call it a full-on carbonated beverage, and this might just be a side-effect of the canning process, as opposed to an intentional design choice, but still, the water wasn’t completely still.

Taste-testing duties fell to our ace reporter Mr. Sato, and he says The Day’s mouthfeel is smooth, imparting a refreshing sensation as it glides down your throat. He reports no unpleasant metallic taste or aroma either, so while it feels unusual to be drinking water from a can, the flavor isn’t funny, and is perfectly satisfying.

But why has Lotte chosen to put The Day in cans, and not the plastic bottles that are the industry norm? In its press release, the company says it sees the day as “One answer to the needs of a new age of wellness,” and the choice of more easily recyclable aluminum seems to be an extension of that philosophy. The uniqueness factor probably doesn’t hurt either, as the packaging and design really do stand out against other brands of water. Lotte might also be hoping that the more substantial feel of a can helps position The Day as a premium product, and at a price of 158 yen (US$1) for a 480-mililiter (16.2-ounce) can, it is a little on the pricy side, as most other water brands are 140 yen or less for a 500-miiliter bottle.

There is one clear drawback to The Day being in a can, though, which is that once you pop the top, there’s no way to close it back up again. This isn’t an issue for coffee or alcoholic beverages, since they tend to be things where people drink the entire can shortly after opening it. Regardless of whether it started out hot or iced, coffee tends to taste significantly worse once it gets to room temperature, and beer and cocktails aren’t the kind of drinks most people go walking around with. A lot of people, though, buy a bottle of water while commuting to work or out on a walk, take a few sips, then put the cap back on so they can toss the bottle in their bag and have some more when they feel thirsty again a little later on.

By nature of being in a can, The Day doesn’t lend itself to that “I’ll have a little now, and then the rest later on” style of consumption, making it a much less convenient choice than its competitors. On the other hand, being locked into drinking the whole can once you’ve opened it does promote taking the time to mindfully hydrate, and with Japan’s cruelly hot kokushobi-level summer weather on the way, maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

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