This Japanese sweets mix by Tenkei contains a variety of eleven treats total. When I purchased these I couldn’t find an exact list of the contents, which made it a bit of a surprise what snacks I would get. In the package you’ll find: one Monaka, two Tea Monaka, one Yuzu Monaka, one Sakura Monaka, one Manju, one Chocolate Manju, two Milk Manju, one Dorayaki, two Dorayaki with Tsubu-an, one Sweet Potato Cake & one Yokan.
There are more than 11 sweets in the bag, but there are eleven kinds total. It contains four kinds of Monaka, three kinds of Manju, two kinds of Dorayaki, Sweet Potato Cake & Yokan.
The price of this bag of treats is around €8,-.
Monaka
Monaka is made with two crisp wafer shells on the outside and a filling, usually red bean paste, on the inside. This one had a red bean paste filling as well. It had a strong red bean flavour to it, which I found a bit too much for my taste. The shells weren’t very crispy, this is probably because it’s packaged and shipped, giving the filling a long time to be in the shell and soften the shell.
Tea Monaka
There was a clear tea flavour present in the filling, which also had some chunks in it. I’m not a big fan of chunky fillings, so for me that wasn’t the best texture. The shell wasn’t as crispy as I would’ve liked, but that was true for all the kinds of Monaka, unfortunately.
Yuzu Monaka
I’ve never had yuzu, but there was a citrus flavour to the filling of this Monaka. The filling didn’t have the strongest flavour, so I’m guessing it was made with white bean paste, also given the colour. I did enjoy this one a little more than the previous two.
Sakura Monaka
There was a sakura, or cherry blossom, flavour to the bean paste in this Monaka and the shell had been coloured pink. It was sweet, but not overly so and the sakura flavour wasn’t too strong either.
Manju & Chocolate Manju
These two I enjoyed quite a bit. They were sweet, but not overly sweet and the texture of the filling was pretty smooth. The “regular” version did have a few chunkier parts in the filling. I think these were filled with white bean paste, given the colour. The thin wheat-based outer layer was soft and easy to bite through.
Out of the two, I enjoyed the chocolate one the most, because of the chocolate flavour in the outer layer.
Milk Manju
The milk Manju filling was a little stickier and more moist than the filling of the other Manju kinds. It also seemed to have more of a vanilla flavour to it, but it wasn’t necessarily sweeter than the other kinds of Manju were. I really enjoyed this one, just like the previous Manju.
Dorayaki
The “pancakes” were soft and cakey. Although I’m not always a fan of red bean paste, I did enjoy this one quite a bit. It did have a stronger flavour than white bean paste does, but it was sweet enough to compensate for the red bean flavour.
Dorayaki with Tsubu-an
These Dorayaki were filled with Tsubu-an, which is a chunky red bean paste. The filling was a little less sweet than the filling of the other Dorayaki, which I didn’t mind since it was still sweet enough. I didn’t enjoy the chunks, but I generally don’t enjoy chunky fillings, so that wasn’t a surprise.
Sweet Potato Cake
This little cake did have a clear sweet potato flavour to it. The cake itself was a little dense and definitely sweet.
Yokan
Yokan is made with red bean paste, agar and sugar. Creating sort of a red bean jelly. I didn’t really enjoy this one, but I think that mostly had to do with texture, not with the flavour. It was a little bit gritty and very easy to bite into, which for some reason I didn’t like.
I was a little bit disappointed when I first laid out all of the snacks. I was hoping for a wider variety of snacks, instead of several flavours of a few kinds. I’d also expected some Mochi or Taiyaki or something similar, but that was mainly because online descriptions were a bit lacking about what was in the bag and some did mention Mochi, weirdly enough.
I did really enjoy all of the manju flavours, the Monaka and Yokan weren’t my favourite, but I think this really depends on your preferences in flavour and textures as well.
Have you tried any of these snacks? Which one surprised you most?
