This last Saturday I found myself in Chicago’s Chinatown celebrating the Chinese New Year with my family. It was an unspoken given that we would be visiting the Aji Ichiban candy shop.
After braving the bleak Chicago cold, it seemed like just the stop to keep my son in good spirits.
Plus truth be told, its just a cool place to visit. As someone used to American Candy stores, the Chinese version is a cavalcade of new sights, smells and tastes (where else can you buy chocolate and a bag of spicy fried seaweed at the same store?).
We were excited to find several varieties of coffee flavored Chinese candies mixed in with the various other flavors you would expect to see in a candy story.
Golden Boronia Cappuccino Crunchy and Soft nougat were first on my list of candy to try. Slivers of nuts infuse the nougat along with a mildly cappuccino-esque flavor.
The hard and crunchy version seemed to be the exact same as the soft nougat with the exception that it seems to have been dried more in the production process. Not a bad candy, but not a show stopper either.
Next up was Calcium In Milk Candy (Coffee) flavor. Unlike many of the packages, there was not a shred of English on its packaging aside from that seen on the outside of the wrapper. And what I thought was going to be a hard candy turned out to be a square of soft and chewy nougat. Chewy and pleasant to eat, it was a far cry from anything I would remotely call coffee flavored.
Last on the list was a box of Meiji Coffeebeat candy. Small candy the size and shape of a coffee bean (down to the line in the middle of the bean) offered a surprising well done coffee taste. While difficult to tell for sure, it appears that actual coffee might have been used in this candy.
Biting into the crunchy shell you are rewarded with a bold coffee taste and chocolate center. If that weren’t enough, the consumer of this find cheap coffee candy is rewarded with a smartly decorated playing card back!
Be the first coffee aficionado you know to own you own complete deck of Chocolate Coffee Beat playing cards! Snappy, stylish, and a damn good reason to eat coffee flavored chocolate candy, it would seem this is the perfect reason to indulge your sweet tooth in the name of coffee!