Glico Strawberry Pocky Tsubutsubu Ichigo 2 Packs

Strawberry cream with freeze-dried fruit through it, coated twice onto a wholemeal cocoa biscuit stick. What is underneath is chocolatey and slightly bitter, and the fruit reads sharp rather than sweet against it. It is the only strawberry Pocky Glico builds this way. Buy it if you want a strawberry snack that tastes tart; if you are after a soft, milky pink strawberry Pocky, this is not that, and the difference is not subtle.

The pack reads つぶつぶいちごポッキー: tsoo-boo-tsoo-boo ee-chee-go, roughly "bitty strawberry", after the pieces of fruit in the cream. Glico prints プレッツェル on the box, meaning the thin baked wheat stick rather than the twisted salty bar-snack kind.

What you're getting

• The strawberry is real fruit. It tastes like fruit rather than flavouring: there is a genuine tartness to it, and pieces you can feel against your teeth.
• The ingredient list also names added colour, flavouring and an acidulant (something to make it tart), alongside the real fruit. The colour is beetroot-derived rather than a synthetic dye. A few people do read it as artificial, mostly because of the smell.
• The biscuit is cocoa, not plain, and among the strawberry Pocky, this box is the only place Glico does that. It is a bitter base under a sweet cream, and the contrast is what makes it work, though not everyone notices the cocoa.
• It is not sweeter than ordinary Pocky. Whatever the pink box suggests, the cream is the sweet part and the biscuit under it is not.
• It will not enjoy a Sydney summer. Glico says keep it under 28°C, and the cream is on the outside.
• Allergens: contains milk, wheat and soy. No ingredient on the list names the soy: it sits inside an ingredient the list does not break down, so this allergen line is the only place it shows. The same production line also runs egg and peanut products. Read the pack's own label before you rely on ours.

It is a permanent line in Japan, not a winter-to-spring seasonal like most Japanese strawberry flavours.