Product information
About
A biscuit stick baked so thin it can be rolled into a hollow tube, with sweet milk cream painted around the inside. It tastes of plain sweetened milk: closer to condensed milk than to chocolate. Buy it if you want something mild and milky; if you are after white chocolate, this is the wrong stick.
On the pack: 白いピコラ 冬のコク旨ミルク味 (shiroi pi-ko-ra). The name comes from the piccolo, the small flute the stick is shaped like.
What you're getting
- Snow-white the whole way through. It is not a white coating over a brown biscuit: the dough itself is baked pale.
- The cream sits on the inside of the tube, not around the outside. That is the opposite way round from Pocky.
- Richness is the one thing people divide on: most taste the milk clearly, some find it lighter than they expected.
- A Japanese winter edition. It is not made all year, and it is not in the maker's standing line-up.
You will see this shape sold as wafer rolls, cookie sticks, crepe cookies, biscuit sticks, or even "egg rolls": all the same thing, and the last one is a translation quirk rather than anything savoury. In the reviews below, one Japanese buyer says it made her want a Lumonde instead: that is Bourbon's rolled wafer biscuit, the closest thing to this on a Japanese shelf.
Details
- Maker
- Yamazaki Biscuits
- Prefecture
- Ibaraki
- Made in
- Japan
- Net contents
- 10 sticks, two sealed bags of five
Our guide
How to eat it
- Chilling it first is a serving preference, not a requirement: plenty of Japanese buyers do it, and nobody in the reviews prefers it warm.
- The two bags are sealed separately, so opening one leaves the other five crisp.
- Have it with coffee or black tea rather than something sweet: the cream is the sweet part.
In their own words
What Japanese buyers say
- What they like
Really milky and delicious!
「ミルク感があってとても美味しかった！」
from monolog
- What they grumble about
Crisp and tasty, but I'd have liked a bit more milk flavour.
「サクサクで美味しいけど、もう少しミルクの風味があると良かった。」
from monolog
- What they like
Beautiful white sticks, crisp and delicious!
「白くてキレイなステイックでサクサクして美味しい！」
from monolog
- What they grumble about
It was a nostalgic, cheap-feeling milk.
「昔懐かしいチープな感じのミルクでした」
from mognavi
- What they like
It has richness — tastes a little upmarket.
「コクがあって、ちょっと高級っぽい味がします」
from monolog
- What they grumble about
A bit floury?!
「ちょっと粉っぽい！？」
from monolog
- What they like
An easier sweetness than I expected.
「思っていたよりも食べやすい甘さ。」
from mognavi
- What they like
I might like this more than the standard chocolate or strawberry.
「定番のチョコやイチゴよりも好きかもしれない。」
from mognavi
- What they grumble about
Tasty, but I think I prefer the regular chocolate one.
「美味しかったけど、普通のチョコの方が好きかな」
from monolog
- What they like
Crisp and milky and delicious.
「サクサクでミルキーで美味しかったです😋」
from mognavi
- What they grumble about
Hmm, a bit of a letdown. Made me want a Lumonde.
「うーむ、ちょっと期待外れでした。ルマンドが食べたくなりました。」
from monolog
- What they like
Sweet and tasty. White and cute.
「甘くて美味しい。白くて可愛い」
from monolog
- What they grumble about
I couldn't really taste the milk; personally not to my palate.
「ミルク感があまり感じなく個人的には口に合わなかったです。」
from monolog
- What they like
Goes well with coffee.
「珈琲によく合う。」
from mognavi
- What they grumble about
Not much of it, but very tasty.
「少ないけれどとてもおいしい」
from monolog
- What they like
It was so good I went back and bought it again.
「美味しくてもう一度買いに行きました」
from monolog
- What they like
It was delicious — I'd like them to sell it again next winter.
「美味しかった また冬に売ってほしいですね」
from monolog
Real quotes from Japanese review sites (monolog, mognavi), translated by us. We show no star rating from those sites.
The maker
Where it comes from
- Yamazaki Biscuits
- Ibaraki
Picola has been made since 1976, and it is named after the piccolo, the small flute, because that is the shape of a hollow rolled biscuit stick.
The making of it is the interesting part. A sheet of dough is baked very thin and rolled up, and the cream goes around the inside of the roll rather than over the outside. Baking it that thin and rolling it is what makes it crisp.
The company was called Yamazaki Nabisco until 2016, when the Nabisco licence ended and it became Yamazaki Biscuits. It has a plant at Koga, in Ibaraki. Picola turns fifty in 2026.
Product facts here are checked against the maker's own page: yamazaki-biscuits.co.jp (opens in a new tab)
Often bought together
-
YBC Picola White Winter Milk Cream Wafer Rolls — 10 Sticks
$4.73
You are on this one
