UHA CuCu Watermelon Salt Vanilla Candy

When Candybowl was young, he went to a summer day camp run by hippies.  Not hula-hoop-twirling, dirty-dredlock-wearing hippies, but just good snaggle-toothed, granola-eating folk into whose hands we were placed for a chain of hot summer days.

There was some weirdness, like the belief that powdered milk was healthier than fresh, or the picking up and inspecting of insects, or the grunge at the bottom of the swimming pool.  But most of it we just accepted as normal.  Like cutting the white parts off of the watermelon rinds other kids had sucked clean earlier in the day and tossing them into an aquarium so we could pickle them.

Of course, there was nothing normal about making watermelon pickles in an aquarium.  For good reason.   First, aquariums are nasty places in which fish and reptiles do terrible things.  Second, aquarium glass breaks easily.  So when we were all supposed to be eating yummy pickled watermelon rind, instead we were picking pieces of broken glass out of the broken aquarium and rinsing the rind, and hoping to god that the pieces we were eating wouldn't kill us.

Which is why the new Japanese fad for watermelon salt candies evokes a sense of longing in Candybowl.

This morsel is part of UHA's CuCu line.   Like all of UHA's candies the texture is flawless.  On sucking, one gets mild and very pleasant watermelon notes with just a hint of vanilla.

The crunch is delightful, releasing a burst of saltiness and just a little caramel.  The watermelon flavor intensifies, but only slightly, more like an increase in sourness without additional fruitiness.

And no broken glass.  An odd and pleasant treat from CuCu.  Try them as soon as you possibly can.

UHA 100% Fruit Juice Gummy

Here is a fruit gummy candy from UHA, a company no doubt well known to followers of the Candybowl (the blog, not the bowl or the blogger).

Make no mistake: this is not a super-soft Kasugai gummy.  Instead, it has a firmer bite closer to a Rowntree fruit gum.  Adding to the textural delight, each candy is shaped like the fruit whose flavor it bears.

Candybowl tried the grape, orange, and peach.  Grape had a very realistic concord grape flavor reminiscent of the Kanro Grape candy.   Peach, too, was fairly realistic.  Orange, on the other hand, had a slightly medicinal flavor without real orange juice or zest notes.

The 100% juice claim, while impressive and borne out by the flavor of at least some of the candies, is a bit of an optical illusion.  According to the package, each candy contains 20% of a 5x fruit juice concentrate.  The remaining ingredients is a mystery, as the printing on the package is clear on white and quite illegible.

Another delightful candy from UHA.

UHA Tokuno Dense 8.2 Choco Candy

Here is another dense milk candy, this time from UHA.  Unlike the Senjaku Hokkaido candy recently reviewed on this blog, this one has chocolate.  And it makes a big difference.

Also unlike the Senjaku candy, the main ingredient in this confection is sugar. However, the second ingredient is starch syrup (which Candybowl assumes is like corn syrup). After that, it's milk, cream, chocolate, cream, condensed milk, butter, etc.

The form is not as elegant as UHA's cucu candies. This may owe something to the engineering required to get the choco into the dense milk.  Initial taste tests were excellent. Clean, fresh, sweet milk. The flavor is not terribly strong on sucking, but there are no off-notes to detract.

On chewing, it explodes with chocolate flavor, releasing a chocolate syrup that creates the confectionary illusion of a hot fudge sundae inside your mouth.  Wow. 

This is a very nice candy.  Try one now.

UHA Matcha and Azuki CuCu Candy

As Candybowl has noted, UHA's Cucu line includes some of the most elegant hard candies around. So it was a pleasant surprise to find this Matcha and Azuki bean candy. Matcha is powdered green tea, and azuki is a red bean often used in Japanese desserts.

Initial flavor notes are very mild green tea and cream. Upon further sucking, slight notes of bean emerge. The crunch is, of course, excellent. This is where the bean flavor really shines, overtaking the tea and forming a delicious, earthy blend.

The package features a dog made out of cubes of candy. Why not?

Another great candy from UHA.

UHA Puccho Budo & Ichigo Candy

This whimsical candy comes to us from UHA, makers of the elegant CuCu candies reviewed here. It comes in two flavors, strawberry (ichigo) and grape (budo).

As seen in the photo, out of the package it looks like a piece of cut taffy with jam in the middle. Or a very pale jam-filled cruller. Or a pig in a blanket where the pig is jam and the blanket is taffy.

Initial taste tests failed. This is a soft candy, and there's not much going on until it's chewed. Once chewed, it released flavor notes of sour, artificial grape/strawberry, bologna. and candle wax. And at the end, a piece of harder jelly filling.

Further inspection being needed. Candybowl took a fresh piece and nibbled away the white wrapper to reveal the jam center. Clearly, the wrapper is the source of the wax and bologna flavors. What Candybowl could not have predicted, however, was that the hard jelly filling is not like a sausage at all -- it's a series of small pellets. Those jelly pellets have the texture of a Rowntree Fruit Gum, and account for the burst of fruit flavor at the end.

In sum, an odd candy with some clever engineering, but far too flawed to receive high marks from Candybowl.

UHA Cucu Jiyugaoka Pudding Candy

This candy, has two names. In English, it's "Cucu Pudding". In Japanese, it's自由か丘 which, according to online translation, means "Freedom Hill." (Candybowl can say for sure that "自由" means freedom.)

The package promises the flavors of "custard pudding and bitter caramel" and it delivers. The first taste will be familiar to those who fondly recall Hunt's Pudding Cup. But no hint of artificial flavor, or any of the play-doh notes that can afflict even confections made with real milk.

The excellent fracture reveals the slight bitterness promised by the package. The cube is slightly smaller than other candies but, since this is part of UHA's Cucu line, the rest of the crunch test basically writes itself. A bit of gum on the tooth, but otherwise this is a very refined candy.

One more thing. This candy contains caffeine extract.

Which all leads to the question, why "freedom hill"? Anyone?

Postscript 6/25/09

Jiyugaoka is a neighborhood in Tokyo's Meguro district. There is a theme park called the Jigukayoka Sweets Forest, from the people who brought you the Curry Museum, Osaka Noodles City and Gyoza Stadium. Sweet.

Kyoto Brown Sugar Candy

Followers of this blog know that Candybowl is a big fan of the Cucu candies produced by Japan's UHA Candy company. This candy, while apparently not part of the Cucu line, will be familiar to anyone who has eaten one of those candies.

The flavor notes are intense caramel throughout. Although Candybowl rarely eats molasses, this candy tastes like what Candybowl believes molasses tastes like. The burnt sugar flavor is a little off-putting, but the overall effect is quite impressive.

As seen in the photo, this candy is a marbled cube. The bite is just what one would expect from UHA -- a nice fracture, with an impressively clean finish.

If you want a really nice candy, eat a Cucu butter caramel. If you want something special, eat one of these.