I Try, You Buy: CuCu Cute Cube Candy

Once again, my Japanese candy buying leaves me with something that I find entirely unappealing. I have only myself to blame.

Not having any knowledge of the Japanese language (spoken or written) means I'm usually buying these things based on:
1. Pictures on the packaging
2. Prior knowledge of a product
3. The mandatory English-language ingredients label on the back (there's usually a cursory translation of the product).

I picked up this candy thinking it was some sort of red bean/green tea chewy candy. That was only partially correct.

What I got was a hard candy that was all creamy matcha flavour. It was like a green tea Werther's Original. Yarg.

I don't know if a different texture or a more pronounced red bean flavour would have helped make this more palatable to me, but I definitely found this lacking. Plus, the Werther's-iness didn't help (I hate those things).

I'm sure part of the problem is that I prefer the sweet, citrusy "green tea"-type flavours typically found in American candy to the more authentic matcha flavour produced here.

I shared these with co-workers who had similar feelings.

The one area in which this candy completely delivered for me was the "Cute" aspect. Check this out:

It's a dog made of candy!

Not to mention some of the individual wrappers:

A candy dachsund and a candy shiba inu? Love!

What it is:
A 1/2" cube of matcha-flavoured hard candy

Who should buy it:
People who like matcha; people who love pictures of dogs made out of candy

Who shouldn't buy it:
People (like me) who don't like creamy matcha flavours; people (again, like me) who hate Werther's Originals

Cost: I think this was around $2 at Mitsuwa; being too dumb to tell that this wasn't chewy before I bit in to it? Priceless.