Egraphsen
Stephanie Cullingford
Theatrical Design
Sakuraco
Box One - March 2021
Part Two
March 2nd 2021
Well, now it's March, and wouldn't you know, it's raining. Bucketing with rain and thunder - if I'd waited a week I could have enjoyed my treats on the balcony, instead of holed up in the dark. I think I tortured you enough before showing you the food the last time, so without further do: the thrilling conclusion to my review of my first box...
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But first - Look, I framed it! Isn't it beautiful?
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Goes perfectly with my twinkleberry walls
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Here it is with the postcard of Van Gogh's
Branches with Almond Blossom that I bought while in Provence
The Food (part two)
Strawberry Castella
Some how failed to photograph this on the plate (oops). This is also a Castella, a type of moist cake. If you're curious about the name and how very un-Japanese it sounds, it's because it isn't. In Japan it's called 'Kasutera' and it's a descendant of a Portuguese/Spanish cake called Pao de Lo cake brought to Japan (through the port of Nagasaki) in the 16th century - 'Castella' derives from 'Castile' (the Spanish equivalent of 'Castle') which was one of the Spanish kingdoms of the Late Middle Ages/Early Renassiance (think Ferdinand and Isabella). The cake was easy to transport, and long-suffering, and was eventually presented to the Tokuwara Shogunate. It reminds me of a Madeira cake (named because it was served with wine from the Madeira islands, themselves claimed by the Portuguese in 1420), but these little strawberry morsels were more like a sponge-cake, somewhere between a single layer jam-sandwich and a Victoria sponge. The smell is more fruity than I was expecting with a jam and the folded shape is very cute. The cake is not soft and squishy like a classic castella, but more what I imagine a madeline to be like. The jam was just a thin smear, but with the thinness of the cake, that was just right, and the little dot of cream filling in the middle was a lovely freshener. I took one to work for morning tea, and it was just perfect (That's a lie, I totally wanted more. I'm always hungry!). The packaging is a little boring, though I find the check (ichimatsu) pattern very cute.
Sweet sakura Tea
As you can see from the magazine page, they give detailed instructions in the brewing of the tea (actually, it's a tisane, but let's not split hairs). When you pour the pickled blossoms in the cup they look like miniature crumpled umbrellas in a darkish pink (and not very photogenic!). Even though it clearly says pickled, I was surprised at how, well, wet they were, mentally expecting dried Buddha's tears tea pearls!
The real surprise though, was the smell, at first, that sharp, medicinal scent like the Madelaine, and then a fruity cherry! Genuinely shocked! It had never entered my mind that sakura could smell like cherries! And smelling the tea and that delicate wafting summer, I suddenly understood the reason people rave about the flavour/smell. It was like an Aussie girl spending a winter in England and understanding what it is like to live in darkness, cold and naked trees. Why people from the UK and America rave about spring flowers. The joy of the daffodil. The glory of the Sakura. I'm a convert! In theory, anyway - I don't think I've found that cherry-smell in any of the other items, or any fragrances that are supposedly blossom scented.
Strawberry dorayaki
The tasting notes suggest pairing the Dorayaki with the Sweet Sakura tea, and who am I to argue? A dorayaki is basically two pancakes (of castella batter) sandwiching a filling of azuki beans (I wonder if they have a different name if there is no bean filling?) - this one with strawberry jam mixed in. I have to admit, the pancakes remind me a lot of the Macdonald's hotcakes, and I'm very glad that it was suggested to eat with the tea, otherwise I think it could be quite dry. The cakes smell nicely caramelised, but there's not strong scent of strawberry. As the name implies, the filling is mostly azuki beans, mostly as a paste, a few whole, and a little strawberry mixed in.
As the blossoms are steeping for their minute you can see them skulking at the bottom of their glass, looking almost aggressively unromantic! Apart from that credulity-stretching cherry scent (which isn't very strong, but so addictive) there is a slight bitter smell which I guess is also the sakura scent, having found a indefinable bitterness in the madeleine and the RN monaka. The taste is probably best described as 'Tears of my Enemies'! It's really quite extraordinary! Not seawater, but tears. I'm rather glad it doesn't taste like tea though. I don't really like the feeling of the flowers bobbing against my lips, and chewing one of those errant petals, it's salty (surprise, surprise!) but, again there is that almost illusory spiciness. I nibble on a lost leaf and that's the saltiest of all. In the west, when we think of 'pickled' we think of vinegar pickles, but obviously, these are brine. The tasting notes suggest that it is 'gently sweet and salty': it's not very sweet - and I like that. Overall, this was very pleasant, and I'm glad I got two sachets to try. I also like that they give re-use ideas for the flowers, after you've drunk your tea, suggesting baking, sweetie-making or in white wine, sake or G&T. I'm going to try and make flower-sugar with them!
You can clearly see the famous defining 'snip' in the petals
Red Bean Taiyaki
A few months ago, I was at the seaside with a friend, lazily debating whether or not to get an icecream (that sounds like a line from Famous Five!) and I asked her if she knew why icecreams were being served in a fish-shaped cone. Obviously, I'd come across the phenomena before, but it wasn't until I got home that I had the opportunity to research the design. While they do look a lot like Magicarp from Pokemon, they are actually red seabream, tai, which are a lucky and expensive fish. Essentially they are a filled waffle, with the shape created as a marketing gimmick in 1909. They are the first of the foods produced exclusively for the Sakuraco box, so the packaging is simple, with just the brand's sticker, but as you can see, that completely obscures the little fish. He's quite small (in comparison to the icecream style ones) so I wonder if he's more of a koi than a tai!
The smell is like that of an egg-enriched pancake or waffle, which I quite like, but knowing my (well-publicised) indifference to red-bean, I go in slowly, starting at the tail; I've heard there's often less paste at the end. The fish is beautifully filled from end-to-end with only a thin layer of batter, and I imagine if I liked azuki, I would be in raptures. Sigh. I find it rather flavourless, like mashed potato - it needs something to jazz it up. Who knows, at the end of the year, perhaps I will look back on this post and laugh! I wonder if there is a Western flavour that Japanese people are utterly underwhelmed by...
Okayama White Peach Castella
I also failed to get a photo of this cake, but again, it looks exactly like the picture, so there's no harm done. As a peach cake it is just peachy! A lovely, strong, fruity smell comes immediately from the package - like the Strawberry Crepe Roll, I can smell it from thirty centimeters away. Even though the pureed peaches are mixed into the batter, the flavour is still very delicate, except on the 'crust' which always seems to peel off. This is the fourth Castella in the box and they're all very different, though the Peach and the Macha are the closest (because they share the same shape and cooking method, the texture is the same). Unlike a madeira cake, Castella is that it is not made with butter, but it is made with mizuame (a thick rice malt syrup), which is the major difference between Kasutera and Pao de Lo.
Savories
I saved the savories for last (because that's where they come in the magazine), but I think that's a mistake and next time I will intersperse them among the sweets, but I'm very glad I didn't have them with the tea - salty overload!
Mini Sakura Senbei
There are two types of rice cracker, the puffy-shiny kind and the thinner rougher kind (sorry to get all technical on you!). These are the puffy-shiny ones, and with their sakura shape, they're pretty dang adorable. They taste like a normal rice cracker (what a shocker!), except the flavour is baked inside the cracker, which means no sticky-dusty hands. The flavour of the two colours is very similar, being soy-sauce and prawn, but with the pink ones being a little more spicy, what with the flecks of chilli and all (I'm assuming it's chilli). While they're fun, after eating a whole packet they do begin to pale, just a little. I wouldn't get these to devour in front of the TV, but I want them for a cheese board or charcuterie!
Sakura shrimp Senbei
These are the second kind of rice cracker, and unlike most of the items with sakura in the title, this is not about the flower - this is about the sakura-shrimp (or cherry shrimp or fire shrimp - it's pink before it's cooked). As you can see, it's no shrimp in size, and looks cheerfully oversized. It also has great packaging, with the classic pink-white-green-pink enlivened with a band of deep red and one of gold.
Given that this is made with prawns, it smells surprisingly sweet and fruity. The flavour is more subtle than the previous cracker (Thank goodness - you can have too much of a good thing!). It's a denser cake, crunchier and less crisp - the western rice craker isthe love child of the two types. It also tastes fruity and very pleasant. I'm thinking of mixing prawns and cherries next summer - maybe in a leafy salad, or a rice salad with pickled ginger.
Sakurasen Cracker
I really like the packaging, with the bright yellow contrasting with the pink and green - the actual cracker is rather uninspiring, so the void in the middle is a good way of showing off the product without... showing off the product. After the previous two crackers, I thought I knew what to expect. I was wrong. It smells like toasted rice scent, but with a floral, almost 'cakey' scent. I wonder if that's the sakura.
I haven't found it very floral before, but maybe this is another facet? The cracker is very thin, almost like a communion wafer, but much harder, with a coconut taste. It's both floral and bittersweet, so I'd hesitate to call this a savory, if it wasn't for the fishy taste, which is very meaty and works well with those sharp bouts of spice that the blossoms bring. Unlike all the other items (apart from the chili in the mini senbei) this leaves a warm-mouth feel.
Sakura Konpeito
The last item in the box and the last exclusive Sakuraco item. They're 'star-shaped' and this is both accurate and misleading! If you're expecting a sakura/ five point star in 3D, you're going to be disappointed. But if you really think of what a star looks like, with it's coronal ejections and so forth, it's a very accurate model! Being that they're made from sugar they're sweet and simple but they smell and taste more like peach than sakura or cherry. These are pretty much a classic konpeito, which are small sugar sweets made by applying sugar in layers around a core (the core of the original konpeito was a poppy-seed), these ones of sugar - if you've ever bitten into a 'Wonka Nerd' you'll know what I mean. in fact, that's a very apt description all over - lumpy and bumpy, glossy and shiny, brightly coloured (the adorable pink-white-green-pink that we've come to know and love) and about the size of a large 'Nerd'. The major difference is 'Nerds' are opaque, with the colour only in the outer layer, but these are translucent and coloured all the way through. I think I will use them to decorate cupcakes or something cute in the future.
That's all Folks, the Box is done, and I give it 10/10, for taste, satisfaction, beauty, value for money, all those good things.
Now I'm going to brew up my last Sakura Tea packet and sit on the balcony and watch the rain and lightning, listen to the the thunder.
See you in April!
~ Steph
