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Several of the YouTube channels we follow are of people based in Japan — they go to interesting places and we get to go with them. Sometimes it inspires us for a place to visit for a future trip. Some of them are sponsored by Sakuraco, which is a subscription snack box. The snacks are all semi-traditional snacks (though they have another box called Tokyo Treat which is more modern/trendy) and of course they unpack ’em (and eat!) on video to show what’s in there.

The subscriptions are expensive, and the shipping really kills it, but I was in a contrarian mood so I got myself a six-month subscription. And it took the box a long time to get here, but today it was delivered!

The box is smaller than I had thought it would be. Every month has a theme, and every month they partner with snack makers from a specific region. This month’s theme is “Valentine’s Bliss” and the region is Osaka prefecture — which is why there is a design with Osaka castle on the front, I think? Not sure where that crab comes from, though…

The booklet explains the origin of each snack, but also contains information (and gorgeous photos) of the region-of-the-month.

Underneath is the assortment of snacks! There’s quite a bit there, and apparently Valentine’s means strawberries, because many of the snacks contain strawberries.

Such as this strawberry dorayaki. Dorayaki are two fluffy pancakes with sweet red bean paste in between. This variant had strawberry jam mixed in the paste, and it was very fragrant and sweet. (If you’re curious about dorayaki and an (the sweet red bean paste), I can recommend the movie “An”.)

Every box contains a ‘table-ware’ item. This time it’s a “soup bowl”, with a nice bird motif on the outside. It’s plastic, of course, but it may make for a nice serving bowl for snacks.