Dagashi is cheap Japanese junk food snacks for children, but they have high quality and popular to adults.
You can buy them at convenience stores.
The country used to be dotted with mom-and-pop candy shop, dagashi specailty stores, but they are rare today.
Mom-and-pop candey shop sells not only dagashi but also some toys.
My son likes airplanes made of paper.
Dagashi date back to the edo period.
A distinction was made between “jo”, or luxury “gashi” treats made with white sugar, which was expensive, and “da”, or inferior, gashi made with cheaper sweeteners like starch syrup and brown sugar.
I like “kinakobo”, which is made of sugar, starch syrup and other ingredients molded into sticks and coated with “kinako”, or toasted soybean flour.
The sweetness is just right.
They tried to match the sweetness of sun-dried persimmon, which was a popular sweet snack in the days of Edo.
