January Skoshbox

Of all the Skoshboxes I've gotten so far, this has been the most disappointing, especially compared to the deliciousness that was December's Skoshbox. Half of the snacks were either a bit too weird for me or didn't fit my snack texture preferences.

January's Skoshbox included 1 pouch of Puccho: Hoppe-chan Gummies (Japanese cherry flavor), 1 box of Sakupanda Zed (double chocolate panda face cookies), 1 Gaburi-chu Cola Stick (chewy cola flavored soft candy stick), 1 packet of Ao-Be Soda Gum (two sticks of mouth staining color soda gum, 1 bag of Korokoro Sugar Rusk (crispy sugar rusk cubes), and 2 Umaibo: Yakitori (grilled chicken skewer flavored corn puff).

Puccho: Hoppe-chan Gummies:

These were very, very tiny, but tasty. As the description said, they were cherry-flavored. They were a bit firmer than I expected, but considering their tiny size I guess that wasn't such a surprise. The pouch they came in was cute and resealable.

Sakupanda Zed:

I saved this one for last, because I figured it would be as good as Sakupan-Land from last year's November Skoshbox. Thankfully, it was, although the design seemed a little morbid. Each little cookie-thing was composed of two fused layers. One layer was a panda face made out of chocolate - each one had a different expression. The other layer was a chocolate cookie with a smaller, simpler panda face that I initially mistook for a chocolate-covered pretzel. After eating a few of these, I realized that the cookie part looked like what you might see if you could X-ray the chocolate panda face and see its skeleton.

Gaburi-chu Cola Stick:

I expected this to be my least favorite snack and, lo and behold, it was. I hated the sticky, chewy texture - I'm not a fan of Starburst candies for the same reason. The flavor was a weird mixture of Coke and citrus fruit (maybe orange?), with an edge of bubblegum underneath.

Ao-Be Soda Gum:

One stick was green and the other was blue. I tried them about a week apart, so I can't really say whether they tasted very different from each other, but the colors mattered as far as tongue-staining went. And, yes, these stain your tongue pretty well.

These had a kind of artificial berry flavor, bright and sweet. The texture made me think of Bubble Yum gum. I liked that, as well as the large size of the sticks. However, I'm not really a gum fan, because I think most gum loses its flavor too quickly, and I can't say that this stuff was an exception.

Korokoro Sugar Rusk:

This tasted like sugar-sweet peanut-flavored croutons. A small number of salted peanuts were also included in the bag.

I didn't dislike this the way I disliked the Gaburi-chu Cola Stick, but it was too strange for me. I'm used to things with this texture being salty, not sweet.

Umaibo: Yakitori:

These were a little bizarre, although not my least favorite snack in the box. Texture-wise, these were like giant hollow Cheeto cylinders, only without the powdery coating. The taste paired oddly with the texture, because it really did taste like some kind of seasoned/sauce-covered chicken.