Autumn Food Adventure 2020

I really love to try new sweets and especially in Japan it's always a new adventure as they have so many seasonal treats here, and because these items change, like, every few weeks and months, it never gets boring.  

For autumn in Japan, two things are essential: kuri (栗, chestnut / marron) and satsumaimo (さつまいも, sweet potato). In this post I want to show you some autumn treats I had so far this year. However, this will mainly be about chestnut products, because I don't like sweet potatoes that much.

1) Chocolate Marron Frappuccino

Starbucks Japan is mainly going with the seasons and events when releasing new drinks. So it is not a surprise that they released drinks with chestnut at the beginning of September. They have a Chocolate Marron Frappuccino and a Chocolate Marron Latte.

Because it was still warm recently, I tried the frappuccino. Even though I love sweets I have to admit that it was a bit too sweet for me (I rarely say this), mainly because of the marron sauce which is similar to caramel sauce (which I don't like).

Because Starbucks is changing their special offerings quickly, another autumn treat was already released on September 23rd. This time they are picking up the sweet potato theme.

2) Chestnut Dorayaki and Marron Cream Bouchée

Especially at the traditional sweets shops in Japan's shopping centers you can find seasonal sweets. At our shopping center I found some interesting kuri sweets which I wanted to try.

One is a chestnut dorayaki filled with chestnut paste, similar to the well-known anko. I really liked this one, because the chestnut paste was a good fit with the dorayaki pancakes. There were even little chestnut pieces inside.

The second treat is called a bouchée and was filled with marron cream fitting for the season. The pastry was very soft and made a good match in sweetness with the cream.

3) Seasonal KitKat

For sure, also KitKat is not skipping the seasonal flavors here in Japan and the popular brand has two packs: one with chestnut and one with sweet potato. These KitKat are released nearly every year and you can often find them at the supermarkets from middle of August. I went with the chestnut KitKat which has white chocolate with chestnut flavor. Sweet as always, but a nice small treat.

4) Satsumaimo Treats

Even though I don't eat them, I at least want to show you how popular sweet potatoes are during autumn in Japan. When out and about you can find satsumaimo treats at many places right now. There was a whole booth at Hachioji Station in Tokyo selling various products when I was there last time.

Mister Donut got into the sweet potato hype, too, and is offering doughnuts topped with satsumaimo glaze, crispy potato pieces, potato cream and more. All are in the pon-de-ring type. I personally went with the Halloween doughnuts (probably gonna make another post about them later), but even there one of the doughnuts had a sweet potato glaze on top.

So, this was my little collection of autumnal treats so far this season in Japan. Autumn is just beginning and I especially have some plans for nice Halloween eat-outs which I am already looking forward to.