Egraphsen
Stephanie Cullingford
Theatrical Design
Sakuraco
Box Eight - October 2021
Part One
October 10th 2021
This month's Sakuraco Box is all about Mount Fuji - and as we know, Fuji means wisteria. September (and the begining of October) is the season for wisteria in Perth, and for the first time our two wisteria's have flowered really, really well (Mum threatened to chop them down if they didn't flower properly this year)
I am wearing:
I'm Wearing
– Fuschia haori with pattern of flowers, fans and drums in pale blue
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- White t-shirt and jeans
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– Quick Flicks 'Purple Reign' in To the Pointe (because it only comes in that style)
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–– Revlon Super Lustrous (TM) Lipstick in Silver City Pink
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– Rose gold fan earrings from Lovisa
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- Besame Cake Mascara in purple
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- Featuring Flick-Off reusable make-up wipes and remover (because they're pink and shiny)
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80's pompador vibes
Antique teacup and saucer from Grandma
Bunny Brooch from Miss Ella
KVARNVIK Hat box from IKEA painted white
The Box:
The Magazine and Postcard:
The Owan/ Bowl
This is, without doubt, the drop-dead coolest item we've gotten in the boxes. It's a bowl, that looks like Mt. Fuji when you turn it upside down! I've already used it so many times in real life.
So, here we go! Sakuraco Box Eight - Flavours of Mt. Fuji!
The Food:
Sencha with Matcha
I've been going over my old reviews, and I've noticed that the tea always seems to end up in the second part, which, just because I don't like it, doesn't seem very fair. So to address that I have made my tea first. The packaging is very simple, with a botanical design done in a dull turquoise. The design on this is so familar, that I feel like we must have seen it before - but I cannot seem to find it. Frowny face. I think it's a paulawnia.
The cha is in a pyramid bag and smells slightly sweet like grass, with hay notes. There is a moment of pleasantness (just the water?) before being punched in the mouth with bitterness. I don't know it yet, but that's going to be a bit of a theme with this box.
Also makes a great used tea bag holder
Uji Matcha Tiramisu Baumkuchen
Or Tea-ramisu.
I'll let my self out.
The package is simple, with dark green bands on either side, and very well labled. Although I do wonder if the English speakers picked up that they were using 'Uji' in the 'Fuji' box...
Or is that just the dyslexia talking?
The smell of the baumkuchen is very strongly of vanilla, with a roasted savory smell, with just the 'green' elements of the tea. The flavour is mostly plesant and cakey, with only slight green tea elements - the bitterness is mostly overcome by the sugar. The white/ fresh cream flavour (says the guide) tastes more like coffee (creamy Tia-Maria style) than cream, but there is a slight roasted spiciness that is difficult to place.
I would have thought that having the tea with the baumkuchen would have created a sort of feedback loop, where one picked up on the taste of the other and brought out the best in it, highlighting new elements.
I think it just make the tea taste bitterer.
More bitter. Whatever.
Obgligatory standing baumkuchen shot
Green Tea Leaf Cookies
In one of the shopping centres I work at there has recently opened a J/K beauty shop and the packaging rather reminds me of something I cuold buy there, some sort of feminine hygine product perhaps? Stickers for the bottom of my feet to draw out the toxins at the very least.
Something vaguely euphemistic about that packaging
The biscuits inside are very cute and small, just right for serving at a fancy afternoon tea. They're a shortbread style, and very clearly contain lots of leaves - they're green with it, flecked with them and taste like them. This is one of the few items we've had that is definitely, unmistakably green-tea flavoured. The sugar cannot disguise the green or bitter. They're crispy and buttery, with the flavour moving in two waves - first the greeness, and the bitter tea as an after-tatse that lingers. I imagine if you love green tea, this is going to be the one that makes you sit up and ask for more.
Green Tea Dacquoise
The dacquoise is made by the same company, Takayangi Seicha, that makes the cookies above - they have a maker spotlight in the Tasting guide. Both items are labled with
Cha-tsubu. We all know what 'cha' means. Cha-tsubu was difficult to search, but chatsubo means a 'tea-urn', and a meaning I could find for 'tsubu' was 'small and round' like out good friend azuki - and tsubu often seems to occur in compounds like tsubu-an (refering to azuki sweets). So I'm going to go out on a limb and guess it's just a different anglicisation of 'tea-urn. I'm getting vibes of 'biscuit barrel'. The packet is simple, opaque white with a pattern of circles in sage green shades and gold in the lower half. I'm guessing it's supposed to mimic the bobbly texture of the dacquoise inside.
Dacquoise is a french word and means 'Of Dax' (Dax being a town in South West France). It's a relative of meringue: like macarons and macaroons it has something else mixed into the meringue, traditionally hazelnuts, and is usually layered, like a large scale macaron. In some types it shades more towards a cake, with flour added.
This dacquoise is made with almonds and rice flour, and is just a bit... inelegant. Lumpy. A grey scale anzac biscuit.
When you open the packet there is the sour bitter smell of green tea, which is quite unplesant - fortunately it fades when the dacquoise is removed from the packaging.
The dacquoise-meringue is lighter and flakier than I expected, it compacts rather than shatters like meringue, like a cake or maybe a macaron - it's lightly crunchy. The sour taste and smell seems to be coming from the dacquoise it's self - the filling, is quite bitter and really tastes like green tea! Clearly, the Takayangi family believe in truth in advertising!
Red Fuji Cookies
If you're not familiar with the woodblock print best known as 'Red Fuji', might I suggest you look it up? The tasting guide provides a thumbnail of the Hokusai's Fine Wind, Clear Morning veiw of Mt. Fuji in their spotlight on the famous volcano. The package design is really rather twee, with a kawaii mountain, complete with hair-bow on a pink ground; the smell was like artificial strawberries. So you will forgive me if I was expecting childish flavours from this biscuit.
Awww.
Girl, was I wrong.
The flecks of freeze dried strawberry powder in the icing was a very nice surprise - you can see them in the close-up in the tasting guide, but you have to know that they're there. The biscuit is really nice: thin, crispy with a soft almod smell then a strong bitter cocoa, not a childish chocolate. They taste a lot like grown up Tiny Teddies: you can't really taste the almond. The strawberry flavour in the icing grows from delicate to soft, which is a bit disapointing as I was hoping for a punch of sour fruitiness. The rest of the 'icing' tastes more like white chocolate than icing - so I will look at that discription with suspicion, especially since the biscuit was dipped, which actually makes the back look more like snow.
Awase Fruits Jelly
Apart from a few noteworth exceptions (shiquwasa, and melon) fruity jellies have something of a generic plesant taste and smell. What fruit? Oh, you know, fruits... The mikan orange (also known as the satsuma orange) with it's bright, strong flavour provides a nice contrast to the fruitiness.
Sadly, the cherry has absorbed it, and with the red food colouring, there's just not much left to suggest that this was once the proud end product of the sakura industry - except the pip, which is long and pointed and rather a surprise.
One of the few times you actually see cherries. Seriously, what is with that? Sakura blossoms everywhere and narry a cherry. The packaging is very simple - it seems to be, as a rule, the jellies will be much more simply packaged than the soft-mochis. Simple clear plastic tub, with an elegant lable in brush-stroke caligraphy, and show off your assests, ladies.
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I'm not quite sure what awase is supposed to mean: it has four meanings that I can identify, the fourth (while clearly related) can probably be discounted - awase, meaning 'lined kimono'. The other meanings are 'joined together' (probably the origin of lined kimono); opposite; facing. (Interesting to note that in English 'facing' can also be used to refer to the lining of a garment). The vibe is one of 'togetherness', and I guess that works.
Ajishrirabe Senbei
These are senbei (rice crackers). They're made with the award-winning Niigata rice. The wrappers are made of thin, almost flimsy feeling plastic with a yellow/ orange seigaiha pattern. You get two crackers in each.
There's not really much more to say.
They smell like rice crackers, the flavouring is at turns, sweet, salty, spicy and savory. They're crunchy, light and fluffy, but despite that, quite stiff to bite into. Possibly the lighter one was under cooked as the darker one had a more melting texture.
As far as I can tell, ajishirabe is just a type of cracker.
That's the end of Sakuraco Box eight review - smashed it out in one day, so who knows, maybe I'll get the next one done on my day off next week. Or be painting the stage floor. Yeah - that's more likely.
