Product information
About
Konpeito is sugar: spiked, coloured crystals grown slowly rather than moulded. The taste is clean and simple, closer to the middle of a boiled sweet than to a fruit lolly. Buy it if you want a sweet you look at as much as eat. If you are expecting each colour to be its own flavour, Japanese buyers who have sorted them by colour and eaten them separately report one taste: the colours are there for looks.
On the pack: こんぺいとう. In English it is often sold as Japanese star candy, for the spikes on every piece. If you first met these in Spirited Away, this is the same sweet.
What you're getting
- No two pieces are the same shape: each one has its own number and length of spikes.
- About 1.5 cm across, which is large for konpeito. You get a proper crunch rather than a sprinkle.
- It crunches rather than cracks, and the sweetness is soft and comes on slowly.
- The bag closes again with a zip along the top, and it needs to: sugar draws in damp air and the pieces will stick together in an open bag.
- Allergens: We have not been able to confirm the allergen panel for this pack; read the pack's own label before you buy.
If you don't finish the bag as sweets, they work as sugar: drop two into hot tea or coffee, where they melt slowly.
Japanese emergency-ration tins have packed konpeito alongside hard biscuits since about the 1930s: the sugar is quick energy, and it brings up saliva so the dry biscuit is easier to swallow.
Details
- Maker
- Kasugai · Aichi
- Net contents
- One bag: 76 g — Kasugai does not publish a piece count
For your safety, please check both the information on this page and the printed label on the pack. If anything is unclear or the information differs, please contact us before consuming the product.
Our guide
How to eat it
Good to know
- They are eaten as they are, straight from the bag. The other use is in black tea or coffee in place of a sugar cube: they take a while to go, so the drink sweetens as you work through it.
- Damp is what ruins konpeito, not warmth: the sugar crystals go tacky and clump together, so keep the bag somewhere dry and closed rather than somewhere cold.
In their own words
What Japanese buyers say
- What they like
I spotted it after a long while and bought some. Each grain is big, so there's real substance to eating it — delicious.
久しぶりに見かけたので購入してみました。一粒が大きいので食べ応えあって美味しいです。
from monolog, a Japanese review site
- What they like
The colours are lovely.
色が可愛い
from monolog
- What they like
I bought it out of nostalgia, and now it's one piece as a reward when I'm tired. Konpeito looks so pretty it soothes you just to see it, and the sweetness lifts the tiredness, so lately I keep a bag in the cupboard all the time.
懐かしさで購入して、疲れた時にご褒美で１つ！金平糖はビジュアルが可愛いから見ると癒され、甘さで疲れも取れるので、この頃はローリングストックで常備しています。
from monolog
- What they grumble about
It was a little different from the taste I remember, but it was nostalgic.
昔の味と少し違っていましたが懐かしかったです。
from monolog
- What they like
My child loves it, so I bought it the moment I spotted it (not many places sell this size).
子どもが大好きで見つけてすぐに購入しました （このサイズはあんまり売ってないので）
from monolog
- What they like
That old-fashioned gentle sweetness — I love it.
昔ながらの優しい甘さ 好きです。
from monolog
- What they like
When we head to the park it's a household essential!
公園遊びに行く時は、我が家の必需品！
from monolog
- What they like
Reasonably priced and tasty.
リーズナブルで美味しい
from monolog
Real quotes from the review sites named on the cards. We show no star rating from those sites.
The maker
Where it comes from
- Kasugai
- Aichi
- Founded 1928
Kasugai was founded in 1928 in Nagoya, in Aichi prefecture in central Japan. Its konpeito take more than three weeks to make: a single sugar crystal goes into a turning kettle and syrup is added a little at a time. The spikes grow out of the stickiness of the syrup, and the shape depends on the room temperature, the kettle's tilt and how fast it turns.
Product facts here are checked against the maker's own page: kasugai.co.jp (opens in a new tab)
Often bought together
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Kasugai Konpeito Japanese Sugar Candy 76g Bag
$4.39 AUD
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