A friend of mine recently went on a business trip to Japan and as usual, was showered with small gifts from his colleagues out there. Some of these gifts consist of small items of food and typically these are packed in opaque patterned boxes and labelled entirely in Japanese (presumably not targeting western consumers at all).
Anyway, he gave me one of these items to try; it was all nicely packaged - a slim rectangular box about nine inches in length, but he said he had no idea what would be inside and that it might be shortbread-type cookies, or it might be soap, or anything else.
On opening, it turned out to be a foil/vacuum sealed block of translucent red-brown resilient gelatinous substance, with little or no smell. Presuming this either to be some kind of confectionery or cooking ingredient, I sliced of a small piece and tasted it. It’s a bit like soft licorice, but without the licorice flavour. The taste was sort of mellow sweetish and slightly fruity - slightly reminiscent of dates or raisins. There was a very mild warm spicy afternote that was similar to ginger and/or chili.
Probably yokan or mizuyokan as it’s sometimes known. It is basically beans made into a very firm jelly but you can get all kinds of variations on the theme.
Did it look something like this? (This one has beans actually in it but the stuff I see is usually smooth.)
And if it is youkan, you just eat it! It is nice with a cup of green tea if you like it, as it cuts the bitterness of the tea and makes a nice compliment. You could just have a cup of black ordinary tea and it would go well.
That stuff is yummy with green tea. I’ve only tasted it a couple of times, at the Japanese pavillion of Montreal’s Botanical Garden, where they had a tea tasting event as part of a big “Japanese tea” exhibit. But now that I know what it actually is, I can look for it. Thanks, guys.
