Meiji - Chelsea Hokkaido Milk Candy

Posted under Sweets & Snacks by Victoria

There hasn’t been a post from me in so long, so I apologize for the delay.

Anyways, on to our product for the day!

Once again, the attention to detail is obvious in Japanese products. Meiji’s Chelsea Hokkaido Milk Candy is packaged exquisitely in a silver and blue box decorated with blue flowers. Each piece of candy is individually wrapped in its own silver and blue foil; there are ten pieces per box.

The inside box (or tray?) is all black with white lettering and a four-leaf clover “wishing you happiness with Chelsea”. And if you slide the tray out a bit, you’ll see a label proclaiming “The taste of old Scotland”. Pretty random, if you ask me (what does Chelsea have to do with Scotland, anyways?) , so I did some research. Milk candy is really just the Asian version of that well-beloved classic treat – butterscotch. And apparently that little slogan is a reference to the bunch of theories food historians have referring to the origin of the name “butterscotch” and its connection with Scotland. (You know - one of the definitions of “scotch” meaning of Scottish origin, or having to do with Scotland. ) Pretty interesting - the things we learn writing blogs.

Meiji’s Chelsea Hokkaido Milk Candy is made with milk from – you guessed it – Hokkaido. Hokkaido is Japan’s second-largest island, and well known for its local dairy products. The milk coming from the milk cows raised by local farmers is particularly rich and creamy, which adds a nice taste to this milk candy.

Milk candies are particularly popular nowadays in many parts of Asia, including China and Japan. These specific ones are hard candies and not actually chewy – just rather sticky at first. They have a very nice, rich, milky sort of taste, and I actually prefer these to regular butterscotch. What’s more, these are actually pretty much guilt-free; the entire box combined has only 179 calories.