29 Mouth-Melting Japanese Chocolates

Japanese chocolates — "chokoreeto" in Japanese — range from simpler ones often seen in the west as well, to more obscure local chocolates such as chocolate making kits, chocolates with a bit of a twist such as with caramel cream fillings or ones where you have to dig through your chocolates to find hidden gummies inside.

Besides these tweaks, there are also a lot of chocolate sticks, where undoubtedly the leader is Pocky. There are some other strange concepts as well, so read on to find out more.

Japanese Florentine

In Europe they have very popular sweets called florentines. They're basically chocolate pastries with nuts. Japan absolutely loves European treats, so it was only a matter of time before they started making their own florentines. These elegant Japanese florentines are packed with chocolate, caramel and almond nuts. They're crispy, but don't easily fall apart, and when you bite into them, they become chewy! They're also absolutely delicious!

Limone Double Chocolate

These lemon candies are covered in white and milk chocolate, and are the last flavors I normally want to associate with lemons, but these are actually really tasty! I thought they'd be sour, but that wasn't the case at all. These are also another of Meiji's famous limited candies, so enjoy them while you can!

Puchi Pasuteru

Now that is one exciting candy box! These are crispy and crunchy candy balls encased in yummy and fun shaped milk chocolates. You get two packages in every box, so this is a good chance to share the love with that special guy in your life come this White Day!

Apple, Honey and Cinnamon Milk Chocolates

These pack tons of flavor! Meiji seems to have created yet another unique candy. They're dried and chewy pieces of apple, drenched in honey and cinnamon, and wrapped in milk chocolate. That sounds almost too good to be true, but here they are! These really make M&Ms feel kind of lame in comparison...

Dark Chocolate Pocky

Ah, the ever reliable Pocky stick. There are tons of different flavors out there, and these just happen to be extra rich double dark demitasse chocolate. Crisp, decadent and unfortunately very limited. Made even worse by the fact that I was only able to eat one of them before my girlfriend stole the whole box for herself.

Let's Make Mushroom Mountain!

Hey, don't look at me. That's what the box says. These kinoko (mushroom in Japanese) snacks are one of my favorite Japanese candies to send back home to my nieces and nephews. Who doesn't like cute little mushrooms? Normally they're premade, but this one includes a fun little kit! Now you can make your own cute little chocolate, white chocolate and strawberry mushroom caps.

To prepare the icing, just place them in hot water (50°C = 122°F) until they've unsolidified (don't burn yourself!). Then spurt the icing out into the tray spaces. Dip the cookie sticks in and wait for them to cool and harden. After they've solidified, pop them out and enjoy.

Just don't use all your icing up or you won't have enough for all your cookies. You don't need to fill the mold spaces to the top. Just enough to submerge the cookie (unless of course you want to). You can mix up the icing too! Here's a video if you prefer.

Lotte Strawberry Chocolate Sticks

Double layer chocolate sticks with a splash of strawberry flavor. Sometimes simple is best. Don't ask me what the cute little space guys are doing on the packaging because I have absolutely no idea. The back also features a cute little game for Japanese children to learn English.

Unlike where I'm from, learning a second language is kind of a big deal in Japan. Need help? Konnichiwa! Arigatou! Sayonara!

Chocolate Pencils / Choco Enpitsu

Remember being a kid and chewing on your pencil? When your only choice of flavor was led? No? Uh. Me either. Anyway, how great would it have been if all our pencils were made of milk chocolate growing up. Probably pretty awful actually.

Everything would be brown. A lot messier too, that's for sure.

Now that we live in the future where chocolate pencils are a reality, we can eat our pencils without shame. The stickers included are a cute bonus and feature the well known Fujiyama mascot Peko-chan. I known she's supposed to be cute, but she just looks like someone hiding a secret to me.

WHAT DO YOU KNOW PEKO-CHAN!?

Chocotto Kimochi

These cute little chocolate squares come in two flavors. The red squares are milk chocolate strawberry coated biscuits. They're very sweet and come with a satisfying cookie crunch. The white squares are white chocolates filled with Japanese mochi, or pounded rice. It's a really unique taste if you're not used to eating mochi!

Meiji Baked Chocolate and Maple Cream Torotto

Baked chocolate squares are satisfying enough on their own. Fill them with caramel cream and you're on a whole new confectionary level. The outside are satisfying crispy and evenly baked chocolate squares, while the filling is a sweet thick cream. These also happen to be limited edition, so definitely share them with your friends and family. Or don't. I won't judge.

Unchoco

Let's not beat around the bush. These are chocolate poop balls. The cute little characters open in the back for delicious and kind of gross lookin strawberry chocolate balls. Hey, but that's not all! These little guys with also give you a fortune. Pink is lucky in money, green is popularity and purple is a lucky diet. Brown is...well, you don't want to know what brown is.

Lotte Vessel In The Fog Chocolate

And the award for greatest candy name ever goes to Vessel In The Fog Chocolate. Weird English. Slightly ominous title. This chocolate has got me interested. Originally released in the 1980s, this chocolate is considered old school. It's light and airy milk chocolate, reminding me more like biting into a soft piece of cake, rather than a chocolate bar. The chocolate is so smooth and refined superior quality chocolate!

Meiji Milk Chocolate Cubie

These are very cool chocolates. They almost feel like marble! The texture is very smooth and the chocolate just melts in your mouth. I really recommend putting these in the fridge for a bit and letting them get really cold. It feels like I'm eating chocolate ice cubes. Also, I don't think I've ever seen chocolate so shiny!

Gaufrette Black Cacao

Gaufrette is just a fancy word for wafer, so imagine these as really fancy KitKats. The dark chocolate taste is sweet and bitter. It's a very adult taste, or so the packaging tells me. Otonano tanoshimi, which is what's on the front can translate to "adult pleasure." That's weird! The chocolate taste high quality, and following the KitKat analogy, the wafers are crispy and light.

Nissin Crisp Choco

Pizza shaped chocolate perfect for the whole family. Or just for you with the door locked. We don't judge at Candy Japan. The milk chocolate blasted corn flakes smother each cake piece. Like the title implies, these are crispy as can be. What a satisfyingly sweet crunch! But uh, what's with the googly eyes?

Fluffy Milk Chocolate

This may very well be the fluffiest candy I have ever eaten. You'll immediately think popcorn, but the texture in way softer than popcorn. It's almost like cotton! The milk chocolate is very strong and I was almost taken back. The most surprising part for me was that this candy survived my cats splash attack.

Takaoka White Chocolate Yams

A mix you do not normally see. These mini white chocolate bites are infused with yams, or as normal people would say, sweet potatoes. The white chocolate is rich and sweet, while the mild sweet potato almost reminds me of caramel. However the after-taste is all sweet potato. This candy has a cute little cube shape that practically melts in your mouth. Each piece is individually wrapped.

Horadekita Chocolate Banana Kit

Japanese matsuri (festivals) have a couple of staple foods. One of those is chocolate bananas. It makes me smile seeing kids line up with their parents to get one. It's a nostalgia treat that practically everyone in Japan has eaten. This kit takes the chocolate banana treat and makes it a chewy candy. Simply pour everything into the included tray, stick a banana chew on your toothpick and start dipping.

Kabaya SakuSaku (crispy) Panda

Rich creamy milk chocolate combined with cute little cookies in the shape of pandas. Sakusaku Panda cookies have been a favorite of Japanese children for a long time. In fact, Kabaya is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the treat. Here's your chance to join in on the celebration and try them yourself.

Fujiya Anpanman Choco Balls

Anpanman is a famous character practically worshipped by children in Japan. He is named after the fact that his head is literally bread (pan) filled with red bean paste (anko). He fights “Bacteria Man” with his friends Currypanman and Melonpanna. This has been going on for nearly 50 years. Celebrate the bread head with these chocolate bite-sized biscuits. They’re crunchy and sweet. If you’re super clumsy you can utilize the slot built into the package for single servings without opening the box.

Puku Puku Tai

Taiyaki is a traditional fish-shaped cake in Japan. You can find them at food-stands outside of temples or at matsuri (festivals). They’re usually filled with anko (red bean paste), but I personally prefer sweet potato for its mild-sweet taste. This Puku Puku Tai is a cute wafer snack made by Meito. The outside is a crispy monaka wafer (think mochi, but an ice cream cone) while the inside is filled with lighter than air fluffy mousse chocolate. It offers a crunchy bite with a delicious soft center.

Tirol-Choco Variety Pack

Tirol-Choco is a relatively new brand inspired by the company president’s trip to Tyrol, Austria. They have nearly 400 flavors of chocolates. It’s really popular with children as they can purchase individual pieces at the konbini (convenience store) for around 10yen per piece. Nothing like standing behind an eight-year old count his yen for 50 pieces of chocolate. This assorted bag features 30 chocolates from a variety of different flavors. Which one is your favorite? The correct answer should be White & Cookie.

Crayon Shin Chan Chocobi

This next candy snack is very meta. Crayon Shin Chan is a popular series in Japan about a boy that likes to take his pants off. There is a lot more plot than that, but that is the gist of it. There is also an in-universe chocolate snack called chocobi in the show, and now that chocolate snack exists in the real world. These star-shaped cocoa snacks crumble in your mouth and burst with chocolate powder. Each tiny piece comes individually wrapped. Wow. So efficient. Much Japan.

Big Thunder III

Black Thunder is arguably the most popular chocolate in Japan. This "big" version os the chocolate bar is rich with sweet flavor. While the outside is creamy chocolate, the inside is crispy thanks to its chocolate cookie senter. Double the size, double the chocolate, double the taste!

Bourbon Chocolate Custard

Finally, we have these fluffy chocolate and custard balls from Bourbon. Custard is insanely popular in Japan. I've personally never been a fan of it, but you'd be hard pressed to find a shop that doesn't have something with custard on the dessert menu in Tokyo. The little bread buns are very filling, while the custard is filling is just the right amount of sweetness.

Bourbon Olive Oil X Chocolate

Japan is always coming up with weird combinations. In this case olive oil and chocolate. Not just any chocolate either, but 70% cocoa so bitter lovers are in for a treat. The outer-shell holds the darkest chocolate, while the inside is full of rich and creamy milk chocolate mixed with a unique blend of olive oil.

Hore Hore Chocolate Gummy

This is a great example of Japanese candy: Equally fun and tasty. There are over 10 various shapes of gummy candies you can discover hidden inside this milk chocolate, including swords, skulls, and gold, and even super rare and equally big dinosaurs. You can either dig with your hands like I did for a messy experience or use a spoon like an actual archeologist! The "treasure" itself is delicious orange and lemon flavored gummies. While you could eat this candy as intended, no one is going to judge you for biting into like a chocolate bar.

Galbo Mellow Milk Chocolate

It's finally cold enough to send you chocolate without it arriving as a gooey mess. Hooray! These famous chocolates from Meiji are made from finely ground biscuit cookies molded and then smothered in rich and smooth milk chocolate. While they (hopefully) won't melt at the post office, they'll definitely melt in your mouth. They come individually packaged so they're perfect for sharing. Or just hide them around the house like I do. There's nothing like stumbling upon forgotten chocolate to make your day better.

Meiji Apollo Strawberry Chocolate

These cute cone-shaped treats from Meiji are made of a thick layer of milk chocolate topped with an even sweeter strawberry-flavored white chocolate. They're tiny, but you get a lot of them in the box. They have a creamy texture when they start to melt in your mouth, and the strawberry flavor really packs a punch. Even in Japan Meiji Apollo Chocolates are considered classy, making them hard to find outside in other countries.

Want to try some Japanese chocolates for yourself?

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