You can’t go to Tokyo with out seeing them. These pale-yellow packing containers of individually wrapped bite-size desserts are emblazoned with photographs of the capital’s most well-known vacationer sights and, generally, with some of Japan’s most recognizable animated characters.
Every yr, a whole lot of hundreds of gold-ribbon-wrapped packages of Tokyo Banana are offered round the Japanese capital’s transportation hubs and vacationer districts and branded as the city’s official snack.
But what does Tokyo Banana truly must do with Tokyo, a city that doesn’t have any banana bushes?
Unlike many Japanese treats, that are made with elements native to varied areas and linked with millennia-long manufacturing traditions (suppose udon noodles, inexperienced tea, and yuzu candies), Tokyo Banana was purely born out of capitalism.
In the twentieth century, as Tokyo grew into the world’s greatest city and opened to vacationers from round the world, it nonetheless didn’t have many traditions to name its personal. There wasn’t one standout meals or drink product that was distinctive to Tokyo or that had centuries of carefully-tended historical past to acknowledge.
Compare that with Kyoto, which was Japan’s capital from the eighth to nineteenth centuries: one restaurant has been making soba noodles out of regionally grown buckwheat since 1702. Japan can also be residence to the world’s oldest hotel, a sizzling springs resort that opened to friends in 705.
Japanese snack producer Grapestone noticed a vacuum there and determined to make a Tokyo-centric product that may very well be marketed as a native specialty.
“Tokyo is the place where various people come from all over Japan and it becomes a hometown for them,” a Grapestone consultant tells NCS.
“We decided to invent a Tokyo souvenir with the theme which all Japanese people will feel familiar and nostalgic about. Bananas are the taste of high-end products or imported goods for older people. For younger people, it is the taste of fun memories bringing (bananas) on field trips.”
The consequence was banana-shaped treats which are fluffy on the outdoors and crammed with banana-flavored cream.
Or, as Tokyo-based tour information Katie Thompson places it, a “fancy Twinkie.”
Tokyo Banana is a excellent instance of omiyage, a Japanese custom in which individuals who have not too long ago traveled convey presents — often edible ones — again to their associates, households and colleagues.
Like so many Japanese customs, there are nuances to selecting and shopping for the excellent omiyage.
They are extra than simply souvenirs. Unlike in the West, the place a returning traveler may convey again a magnet or T-shirt for a cherished one, omiyage is nearly all the time one thing to eat or drink that have to be consumed quickly after the purchaser’s return.
By that logic, the presents are often meals merchandise that solely come from one area, or which are identified for being notably good there – examples embrace salt from the sunny islands of Okinawa, conventional matcha from Kyoto, and apple treats from Aomori prefecture in Japan’s north.
But whereas omiyage could be a Japanese custom, Tokyo Banana’s greatest market is international vacationers, not locals, a transfer that the firm says was intentional. Grapestone tells NCS that the firm was provided retail area at Haneda Airport in the Nineties, which prompted them to invent Tokyo Banana in the first place.
With its Tokyo branding and the product’s identify clearly written in English, Tokyo Banana shortly turned related to its namesake city.
Jeff Lui, a Canadian dwelling in Japan, thinks that Tokyo Banana is brilliantly marketed towards worldwide vacationers.
“You’re almost obligated to buy this omiyage for your friends back home. It’s kind of saying, ‘Hey, I was thinking of you right while I was there, and here’s this thing that I know you will use.’”
But on social media, it’s a completely different story.
TikTokers from outdoors of Japan make a beeline for the treats after they arrive in Tokyo. Some exhibit the uncommon flavors they’ve snagged, whereas others give recommendations on which of them to convey again as presents for household. And identical to the American Twinkie, they’re as enjoyable to smush as they’re to eat.
Creator Eat With Adrian’s review of Tokyo Banana has gotten about 260,000 views on TikTook, with commenters chiming in to say how a lot they wish to purchase some for themselves.
Thompson, who has been dwelling in Japan for about eight years, admits that Tokyo Bananas will not be her private go-to snack.
“I’m not the biggest fan. I find the inside to be quite artificial tasting. Banana doesn’t lend itself very well into becoming a sweet custard or candy.”
Although she says associates and kinfolk again in her native US have requested about Tokyo Banana, she doesn’t purchase it for them.
“My go-to, if I am traveling internationally, I pick up sugar butter sand trees. It has a silly name, but it’s actually a tasty cookie as well.” Coincidentally, the cookies are additionally a Grapestone product.
Lui agrees that Tokyo Banana isn’t one thing he picks up and eats himself, however he offers with tons of questions from family members in his native Canada after they go to.
“Every time someone from Toronto comes (to Japan) they’re like, ‘Oh, like I saw this Tokyo Banana thing, and I bought a few boxes to bring back home.’” On his web site Tokyo Chase, Lui critiques different Japanese snacks and tries to steer folks in completely different instructions after they’re shopping for foodie souvenirs, particularly if they’re repeat guests to Japan who wish to dig a little deeper.
In latest years, Tokyo Banana has made an effort to change into extra local-friendly.
Grapestone periodically launches new flavors, like lemon, sakura or honey. To create a buzz, sure merchandise will solely be out there for buy at one particular outlet, like its store in the modern Ginza neighborhood.
The model has collaborated with fashionable homegrown characters like Pikachu, Chiikawa, Hello Kitty and Doraemon. And, of course, there’s additionally a Tokyo Banana-flavored Kit Kat.
In 2022, Tokyo Banana opened a flagship retailer inside Tokyo Station. To have a good time, they tried out a savory product, a spin on a fashionable Japanese curry bread made with “pork and beef simmered with onions, heavy cream and banana puree.”
Grapestone gained’t reveal precisely what number of merchandise they promote in a yr, however on their web site it says that Tokyo Banana is the hottest meals memento in Japan’s capital.
The model tells NCS that for those who laid out each single Tokyo Banana offered in a yr, the tiny desserts would attain throughout the Pacific Ocean from Tokyo to the United States.
Usually, although, they journey by air.
EDITOR’S NOTE: NCS’s Soyon Nishioka contributed reporting.