A Japan Crate is a monthly subscription box, where you receive Japanese candy, snacks and possibly drinks. There are 3 crates: the mini for $12/month, the original for $25/month and the premium for $30/month. You get free U.S. shipping and pay a fee for international shipping. You also have to pay taxes. You can get a discount if you are a brand new customer. They also have tiers of how to pay for the crates. You can pay month-to-month or you can pay 3, 6 and 12-month plans. You would pay all of the amount now, but you would save more money the longer the plan is. They also have Doki Doki Crates, which is great if you like Japanese toys and branded products. I will be focusing on the original Japan Crate for this review. I'm doing this review for free in case anyone wanted to know more about Japan Crate.
The original crate is a 1 pound crate that has 8 to 10 items and is guaranteed a DIY kit. The DIY kit is something you make and eat or drink. The crates shipped out a bit late, so they threw in 3 mini green tea KitKat's. I'm not a big green tea person, but these were not intense with the green tea flavor. They tasted like white chocolate KitKat's with a light green tea hit in the background. The purple and white candy in the picture looked and chewed like gum, but it was taffy that also tasted great. If you get a Japan Crate, don't freak out thinking that they forgot to ship your stuff. They usually have to ship out a lot of stuff and they will email you when your crate does ship.
I received Nabisco Chip Star Potato Chips, which looked and tasted like plain Pringles, even though they were seaweed and salt-flavored. Every crate gives you random things to try and you might not like all of them, but you won't know until you try them. The chips in the above picture in the bottom right are the Chip Star Potato Chips and they were also well packaged. I only had a couple of broken ones and it wasn't a lot of crumbs. I had to get my friend to eat them before I told her they were seaweed-flavored. Some people freak out and you might have to get them to try something before they say no just off of what they think it will taste like.
The super lemon candy were pretty much lemon warheads. They started off sour and became sweet. I liked them, but I couldn't eat a whole pack of them, so I gave some away. I did enjoy everything I had, but there was one thing that got me. In the above picture with the blue bag and the ice cream on it, that was one of the DIY kits I received. It was supposed to make some type of foamy apple cider-tasting "ice cream". It wasn't really ice cream because you never put it in the freezer, but it did come with ice cream cones. I didn't like it because it didn't taste good and the foam looked like and was the consistency of saliva. I know that sounds gross, but that's just the experience I had with it. Sorry. It happens. You don't like everything. Back to the yummy stuff.
These 2 products were great. I received gum in flavors of cola, cider and grape. Japan does a really good job of making candy that tastes like cola. It's in the background, sugary and has a nice flavor to it without the carbonation. The gum lasts and you can blow bubbles if you want. Japan also does a really good job when it comes to gummy candy. They aren't soft chews like Trolli gummy candy, but they are easy to chew. They also have a good combination of sour and sweet and have great flavors.
I saved the best for last, chocolate. I live in a hot climate, so I was glad it didn't melt. If it did melt, I still would have put it in the freezer. The chocolate across the bottom is chocolate with colored wafer balls on top. It tasted great like a Nestle Crunch almost. The chocolate was also shaped into different things like bears, hearts and cones. The picture across the top was my other DIY kit. It had little chocolate candy balls that you use to make a design. You melt the other chocolate, mold it and refrigerate or freeze it and eat it. There is nothing bad that can be said about these.
Every crate is different, so you might like the one you get this month and hate the one you get next month. Overall, I enjoyed this crate. If you love or want to try Japanese candy, then this is a good subscription service to try. If you're worried about cost or not getting the crate you want, you can get a discount as a new subscriber, try the mini crate for less money, check the Japan Crate past crates page or look at un-boxing videos for Japan Crates. It will let you know more about it and help you make a decision. It's always mostly candy, but you can get other types of products. It's a surprise every time. I saw one crate had dried squid. Drinks usually come in the premium crates, but Japan Crate occasionally has special crates on the side such as a lucky crate. It had 3 drinks, candy, gum and a savory snack and everybody got a different combination of those things. If you want to try it, go for it and it also makes a great gift as well!
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