00:02 John Daub: I have some items here that I think you're really gonna like. This is the time of year where everything gets pink. We start to eat cherry blossom foods. And yes, you can eat the blossoms. Some of them, not all of them. In this episode, we're gonna look at a few that are at 7-Eleven Japan right now, which look extraordinarily good. This one we've already taken a sip of. This is Ito En, which is one of the biggest green tea makers in the world. They do sakura (cherry blossom) this time of year. We'll sip this with these items.

00:45 John Daub: I went to the 7-Eleven Japan down the street just a little bit ago. Let's take a look at this video clip to give you a look inside of what it's like at springtime. You can just tell where it is. We just passed some pink bread that was at the bakery side of the 7-Eleven in Japan. 7-Eleven in Japan is just so much different, so much better. I don't think it can be imitated. Now we go right to the sweets because that's where, you know, cherry blossoms are usually sweets. This one is Ichigo Sakura. There's a strawberry pink. White peach is also a flavor you'll see associated with spring, even though that comes out in the summer just because of the coloring of it.

01:45 John Daub: Matcha also comes out a lot. That green color, because of the matcha harvest is also taking place in March. So they kind of just go together. You'll see pink and that matcha green color in there. It's so good. It just mixes really well. And once the cherry blossoms start, a lot of these flavors go away. It's just the time of year. So I'm going to go get a basket right now and I'm going to get a few items.

02:30 John Daub: I also noticed that they had the strawberry and the blueberry sandwiches competing. The blueberry one has that purple bread, which is really good. I ended up not getting them. The strawberry one was ¥450, and the blueberry one, I think it was 270 yen. So I was surprised with the price differences. Over here in the longer shelf snack items, you have the dango sankyodai. This is also a taste of spring. I didn't get that because it doesn't have sakura flavoring in it. But this one did. This is sakura mochi ohagi, which has red bean paste in there. Here, this is a sakura daifuku. Daifuku being soft mochi with a filling of red bean paste.

03:30 John Daub: The bakery items here, they were strawberry and peach, I believe. So it wasn't actually sakura, but they are pink. And you do get that sakura feeling with the pink color. You know, the Somei Yoshino blossoms are actually white. That's the one that's predominant in Japan. That's more the Kawazu zakura flavoring. I almost got a slushy. I keep forgetting it's not summertime. These are so good. At the 7-Eleven in Japan, sakura flavor comes from the yaezakura which is harvested. That's a late-blooming sakura. Then they're pickled in salt and then preserved. And then they eat them in the next year or they sell them. A lot of them are coming from China now.

04:45 John Daub: I'm starting to put stuff in the basket. I also got this matcha white chocolate cookie at 7-Eleven which are so good. These things are really, really good. They're about 200 yen, like $1.25 or something for one. I also found in the supermarket these matcha latte KitKats, which is the flavor of the season right now, sponsored by Ito En here. I thought about getting it. But actually, you know, the KitKats are getting a little bit too expensive with inflation. I'll open up this tea here and we're gonna dig in. I'm gonna show you what our haul is. If you can still find it, this is really, really good.

06:00 John Daub: Cherry blossoms, what do they taste like here? Let's go with the cherry blossom daifuku. Right here. The daifuku, it's rice cake with cherry blossom flavored sweet red bean paste. Oh, it's so soft. That's mochi. I'm just going to demolish it. Oh, my goodness. This is a sakura daifuku with a white bean paste sakura infused in it. It's somewhat floral. Because it's been preserved, there's going to be some saltiness to it. So it's a sweet and a saltiness that really balances out well. The mochi, of course, is so chewy. This is great to eat with tea, with green tea, hot green tea in particular.

07:00 John Daub: Let's turn to this one here. This is the mochiri flavored crepe with sakura strawberry sauce. It looks like it's got mochiri, means it's got like a mochi to it. We're going through this real fast. Not a fan of the daifuku? I hear you on that. It's not something that I eat too often, but it's not too sweet. A couple dozen people do perish from choking on it in the New Year's time when mochi is eaten the most. This looks really good, though. Okay, it's light. It's hard to taste because of the strawberry. It overpowers the cherry blossom taste, the sakura taste. So you don't really get much of it, but it's really good. It's more strawberry than sakura, but you can see that cherry jam in there. Japan does these confections so well.

08:30 John Daub: Next up, sakura mochi. This is sakura mochi. This is probably going to be very close to the one I just ate before. That's a daifuku. This is a mochi. Oh, this one is perfect. See if I can zoom in. That right there is the cherry blossom. That cherry blossom is a yaezakura. So it's not white. This is the edible version that we usually eat. This might have come from Kanagawa Prefecture. Tokyo's neighbor is the one that produces the most of these for edible purposes. Again, they're pickled and they're good. You can see the rice in there. So they didn't bang it out to a smooth consistency. They kind of left it in. You can still see the grains of rice, but it's a mochi rice for sure. That red bean paste in there is nice.

10:00 John Daub: I'm gonna try this cherry blossom right now. Just the blossom. Oh, it's so salty. That's a preserved cherry blossom. It's salty floral, but it mixes well with the red bean paste and the mochi. Last but not least, ladies and gentlemen, we have the 7-Eleven matcha cookie. This has nothing to do with cherry blossoms. This cookie is dedicated to you. It is a white chocolate matcha cookie. Because of the first harvest of the matcha, the green tea and the matcha this time of year is very popular because they're getting all the first harvest, the flavor of green tea out there. So you'll see cookies and a lot of other confections.

11:30 John Daub: Soft cookie, really good. You can't use dark chocolate or milk chocolate with a matcha. You have to use white. Not just because it seems to stick out more from the darker green color, but it's more neutral. Just the fat of it. It's really good. I don't think it's a very deep matcha taste to the cookie. I think it's extraordinarily slight, but it's pretty good. You'll find places like Starbucks and all the other convenience stores, Lawson's, Family Mart, they all have sakura flavor coming out now. Right now Starbucks has the sakura frappuccino. It's like all sugar, but it's not actually cherry blossom. But they put a cherry blossom tree-like design on it. I think it's a white peach. Very interesting.

13:00 John Daub: I think we're gonna have a really good cherry blossom season. I'll try some other confections as time goes by, but if you have any questions, please leave them in the comments below. This is like a redo because for some reason the live stream originally cut off. Red Bull has a cherry blossom flavor. You shouldn't be drinking energy drinks. I don't understand energy drinks because once you get hooked on them, then you need energy drinks to get the energy back. It's worse than coffee, let's just say. White peach is extraordinarily good. But you typically will only see this in the summertime. White's day is coming and I got chocolate from my wife. So now I have to return the favor on March 14th and give her chocolate.

14:30 John Daub: Leo, my son Leo and I have been looking for the best chocolates possible, like to outdo her. That's going to be hard to do. Maybe we'll make it. The cherry blossoms are going to be blooming early this year. The Japan Meteorological Agency says that they're going to be four days earlier than originally planned a month ago because we've had extraordinarily warm weather. Even when I was running in the Tokyo Marathon. If you look on Instagram right now, before it expires, the cherry blossoms should be blooming around March 19th in Tokyo or start to bloom, which is like two weeks away, which is crazy.

15:45 John Daub: Let me show you really quickly this video. Here's the Tokyo Marathon. I ran a 3:31. I had a camera attached to my chest. So I'm going to be doing these hyperlapses, like 12 second hyperlapses as transitions, which can be really cool. I was filming more for the story. If I had run for time, I think I would have gotten 3:25 or less. Maybe 3:23 to 3:25. But I was filming and taking it easy and I got some cramps from lack of hydration. I got a chance to say hi to Leo and Kanae as I ran by there near Asakusa. Made the round there and then the straightaway to Monzen-Nakacho. It'll turn and back through past Ryogoku, through Nihonbashi and Ginza.

17:00 John Daub: This is the Pocari Sweat booth near Suitengumae. They helped me get into the race, so I'm so grateful for it. Past Ginza and then down to Mita. The turnaround past Tokyo Tower and then the straightaway to the goal. This is a long way. I'm tired, but I'm okay. I'm 52, so my heart, it's surprisingly, I did pretty well in my age. It's actually better than my past marathons when I was 20 years younger based on age and stuff. Anyways, I'll see you in another episode real soon. If you have any questions, leave in the comments below. Matane. Spring has sprung. We're almost there.