Okinawa Kokuto Goma Shoga

One of my favorite aspects of anime culture so far, has been the snacks. And if you scratch the surface of the Pocky/Pretz/Hi-chew genre, a whole world of Japanese goodies outside of these mainstream snacks is revealed.

There are sooo many yogashi (Western style snacks) and wagashi (traditional Japanese snacks) to try that I could probably cover two snacks a week for a year and still not have covered even a fraction of what’s available. BUT, most of the good stuff is distressingly out of reach in Japan so I have to pace myself and hope that I’ll get to the pure goods in time.

Speaking of pure, who woulda thunk that pure sugar would make a tasty treat? After picking up a bag of Okinawa Kokuto goma shoga, I figured I’d see if pure sugar does indeed make good eat’n.

Okinawa is famous for many things. A few of which are their distinct dialect (uchinaguchi ), their spicy food, their incredibly long lived inhabitants, and their sugar. Why Okinawa is so famous for kuro sato (black sugar) may be because the island’s humid climate is conducive to growing sugar cane. Or maybe they just know how to make brown sugar better than other folk. I haven’t a clue why they’re famous, hell, renown for this sugar, but the label on the packaging made damn sure that Okinawa was on there, front and center.

Kokuto is the Chinese lettering of kuro sato. Koku is “black” and “to” is sugar. Kokuto aka, kuro sato, is used in many Japanese treats, including karinto, kuro sato ame throat candies, and Okinawa Black Sugar Caramels (there’s Okinawa again!) from Morinaga to name a few. Black sugar is processed by boiling all the cane products (molasses, raw sugar, cane juice, etc.) together leaving the nutrients intact that are usually separated from the sugar in the usual centrifugal refining process. Potassium is a biggie left untouched and many people in Japan swear that this stuff is a health food. Sugar, a health food? Apparently in Okinawa folks live to be a lively 100, on the average. Their diet consists mainly of what they can harvest and process from the island. If eating black sugar once a day is gonna help me reach a toe-tapping 120, I’ll be getting my fix and staying healthy.

In the candy I bought there are added flavors of sesame (goma) and ginger (shoga). I love brown sugar and molasses, ginger and sesame seeds so this should be AWESOME, right?

Packaging is, meh; green and orange really don’t work well together. That’s OK, since I can see the sugar squares through the cellophane and it’s always a plus to see the product. Mmmmm, smells like molasses; looks like brown sugar with a flea problem(that’d be the sesame seeds).

Crunchy texture, just like sugar cubes. First and foremost flavor is the brown sugar. Then a tidge of sesame, and lastly, the slight heat from the ginger. Interesting. In texture, this reminds me of the maple candy I used to eat as a kid.

Well, this is definitely brown sugar. Can’t say too much aside from the fact that it’s brown sugar that’ll help me achieve a youthful longevity and that it combines two taste sensations into a molasses-y, texture treat.

I can’t see myself opening up a bag of this stuff and sitting in front of the TV with it. This isn’t one of those treats. This is something you put on oatmeal, toss into tea/coffee, crumble on top of toast or eat like an after dinner mint (with the ginger that’d be really effective). As a snack, kokuto goma shoga falls short, but as an occasional treat and a condiment it gets high marks.

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Scoring an average of