Snakku – December 2016 Review

Snakku is a monthly subscription that delivers traditional Japanese treats selected from local snack shops and curated around a theme.  They offer two types of subscriptions: a smaller Tasting Box with 5-7 snacks, and an expanded Signature Box with two pounds of snacks.  This is a review of their Signature Box.

$38.95/month including shipping.  Snakku recently relaunched their boxes, and now offer free shipping internationally as well!  The Signature Box is also available in 3 and 6 month prepaid plans with a slight discount.

The tasting box is available for $15.75/month including shipping, but it is still only available in the US.

Snakku wraps their Signature Boxes in a beautiful washi paper furoshiki, a wrapping cloth that traditionally holds goods or clothing.  This month’s furoshiki features little pink fans on a pink and white gradient background.  I like saving these to use in place of wrapping paper – it’s reuseable, and a more unique touch to a gift!

December’s box features snacks from the prefectures of Nagano and Gifu, two areas in the middle of Japan that are well known for their historical significance and wintry landscapes.  Nagano hosted the 1998 Winter Olympics, and is famous for its nature, hiking, skiing, and hot springs.  If you’ve ever seen the image of wild monkeys bathing in a Japanese hot spring, that’s at Nagano’s Jigokudani Park!  Gifu is also well known for its hot springs, which are especially perfect considering it is one of the snowiest regions in Japan.  Because of its prime location in the heart of Japan, it holds a great historical significance and has many well-preserved villages and cities.

Snakku also provides an information card describing each product in the box.  These cards are so informative and beautifully decorated and laid out!  In addition to telling you where each snack comes from and a little bit of its history, the info card also provides important allergy information for every treat!

Miso Wheat and Miso Ginger Crackers 

These crackers are from a snack maker local to rural Gifu for almost 100 years, so they certainly have a long, classic history!  They’re made from high quality rice and homemade miso, glazed with artisanal soy sauce, and topped with a very light icing.  Snakku included two flavors, miso wheat and miso ginger, but the only difference is the flavor of the icing.  The crackers have a light, toasted rice flavor and the icing added a delicate layer of sweetness.  I preferred the miso ginger cracker, since the spice of the ginger gave it a little extra depth of flavor and reminded me of a ginger snap.

Apple Sable Cookies

These cookies are made with Shinshu apples, a type of apple that the Nagano prefecture is famous for.  They have a shortbread-like texture, and the buttery flavor goes well with the sweetness of the apple.  This is definitely a sweet dessert cookie!

Shrimp Senbei 

I’ve tried these shrimp rice crackers before, and I LOVE them!  I will always be happy to see more in subscription boxes.  These crackers have been infused with dried shrimp and sea salt, so they have a savory ocean-y flavor.  The saltiness and the crunch of the toasted rice make this one of my favorite senbei ever! 

Natto Soybean Okaki

This was one of my favorite snacks in the box!  These little popped rice crackers are infused with fermented soybeans (called “natto”), and then wrapped in seaweed.  I’ve never had natto before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it added an interesting smooth texture to the crunch of the popped rice.  Typical natto is quite slimy, so it balanced well with the rice.  The seaweed on the outside provided the only salty flavoring that I could taste – I’m not sure what plain natto tastes like, but I didn’t taste much more than the seaweed.

Midori Nobunaga

This is a green tea castella cake from a 60 year old snack shop.  It is made with premium Mino green tea local to the Gifu region, and is named for a 15^th century Daimyo warlord who helped increase the popularity of green tea and castella cakes in Japan.  It has a dry, crumbly texture that makes it the perfect companion for tea, and it’s very lightly sweetened – unlike most cakes, it doesn’t overwhelm you with sugar, and it really lets the bitterness from the green tea shine through.

Salad Hope 

These were rice crackers that looked a little like french fries and tasted like potato chips.  They had a light layer of oil and salt for flavoring, but otherwise they were a delicious snack to munch on.  They didn’t taste any different from regular chips, but the texture was a little less brittle so I could definitely tell they were rice crackers.

White Birch ChocoCrunch

This snack comes from Nagano and is reminiscent of the snow-covered birch trees in the area.  The inside contains crumbled gaufre wafers dipped in chocolate and topped with a layer of white chocolate to represent the birch bark.  The wafers inside were nice and crunchy, and the chocolate outside was smooth – kind of like a very high end crunch bar!

Alfort

These Japanese-style English biscuits are covered in a layer of chocolate with the image of a ship printed on top.  Snakku included two types: one with dark chocolate and one with milk chocolate.  Both had considerably more chocolate than biscuit (never a complaint here), and were smooth and rich.

Snow Rabbit Manju

These little manju are shaped like snow bunnies!  The outside is a buttery cake, and the inside is filled with white bean paste that has been infused with Nagano’s famous Shinshu apple juice.  It’s a sweet little pastry with just the lightest touch of apple that I think kids would love!

Kinako Candy

These candies contain roasted soybean flour (kinako) and are covered in brown sugar.  They have a nice, warm toasted flavor between the soybean and the caramelized sugar.  And how gorgeous is the shiny gold color?  They aren’t quite hard candies, more crunchy from the sugar outside and the toasted inside.  I liked these way more than I thought I would, considering I’m not crazy about soybean.

 

Overall, another excellent box from Snakku!  They emphasized the colder, more wintry areas of Japan this month, and I like that every item was buttery or rich or toasted – it really reflects the cuisine of snowy areas.  Snakku (and Japanese culture in general) really emphasizes quality and design in their snacks, which you can see from the cute rabbit-shaped pastries to the gold colored candies and the imprinted chocolate biscuits.  While this is definitely not a cheap box, you can always expect consistently high quality items and A-plus curation.  It’s a great subscription for someone who wants to learn more about Japan, or someone who appreciates fine local treats.

PR sample.  All opinions are my own, and no compensation was received for this review.