Tiki Candy ?

Aloooooha!

I was at my favorite Japanese/Hawaiian market named Marukai, and while looking at the different teas, I heard this couple speaking their native language and then "tiki" is said like 4 or 5 times. It piqued my curiosity so I went over to see what they were talking about, and found, what I too would guess, to be "Tiki Candy".

The price was $1.07, including tax, so I bought one and tasted 2 of the little candies. I can't quite place the taste, but it does have sort of a light lemon flavor, and a slightly softer consistency in comparison to Pez. It doesn't say "TIKI" anywhere on it, unless there is a written Japanese equivelant to the word 'tiki' that was on the package, but the container kind of gives you a hint as to why I call it "Tiki Candy".

Front view with Japanese writing on the safety seal.

Side view with Japanese writing on the safety seal.

Front view, safety seal & candies removed.

Closeup of the face.

I thought it was cool, and for $1.07, I got my brief tiki-thrill for the day.

BTW~their fresh seafood and sashimi is REALLY good! I got home and pretty much had the WHOLE package of Tuna Sushi all to myself! MMMMMMM...Good!

SushiCaddyDaddy

Geez, come to think of it, I sure hope these ARE Japanese candies, and not some sort of miracle Japanese laxative that makes you do the same face as the packaging when it kicks in!

LaxCadDad

SCD, how many did you eat? Those are Vitamin C tablets.

Vitamin C tablets?
Really?
Are you absolutely sure?
They were located near the candy section of the store.

I only had two, and they're small. Some of you know that I am a Tiki-betic, so I wouldn't have eaten too many of these little guys anyway. I just don't want my little 4 year old going overboard on these.

I'll Put In On My Schedule!

[ Edited by: sugarcaddydaddy on 2003-04-17 13:51 ]

According to my wife, whom is Japanese, its candy, there is also a drink version of it too.

Damnit Stuckie got me! :lol:

SCD, you should have known better, I don't speak or read Japanese!

I got hooked on that candy too, thanks to Naomi. It actually comes in different flavors, but the blue one is flavored like the Japanese soft drink called Ramune ("rom-nay"), which comes in a bigger glass bottle in the same shape. Just had Ramune with lunch today in fact.

The drink bottles have a neat little gimmick - you open them by popping this little glass marble stopper into the bottle, which stays there and rattles around. The "eyes" on the bottle are there to keep the marble from rolling back to block the opening when you drink. I've never seen the candy or drink bottle with the "mouth" part below the "eyes" though.

-Randy

AquaRJ~
I went to my second favorite Japanese store, and I found the other three colors available. They had them for .79c each! Oooooooh Puuuuuurrrrple!

I also found the drink you referenced. You're right about it not having the 'mouth' on the bottle like the candy does. The flavors available are peach and lychee.

SugarCaddyDaddy

I'll Put In On My Schedule!

[ Edited by: SugarCaddyDaddy on 2003-04-18 13:55 ]

Are you sure they're not aliens :o ?

TikiBud~
Could be. I think we need Naomi or Stuckie's wife to translate exactly what it say's on the package. BTW, the candy is pretty good.

Y'know, I realized later that the "mouth" was always there on both kinds of bottles - I just never looked at em from the right angle!

Naomi says (half-kiddingly) that maybe the name Ramune originally came from a Japanese trying to speak the word "lemonade".

Leh-mo-naid
Reah-muh-nay
ROM-NEH

-Landy

Considering that the name Ramune is in Katakana(the writing style for foriegn words)it very well could have come from the word lemonade. Who knows, my wife thought that sounded like a possiblity.
Its actually pronounced La-Mu-Ne as the Japanese lanuguage doesnt have the R sound.
Sorry, Im learning Japanese right now so Ive got all this going through my head.
I asked what the word meant but she said there is no meaning, its just a name.
As far as the bottle goes, she never even put two and two together until now about it looking like a tiki. I doubt it was meant to look like a tiki, prolly just thought it was a cool shape, dunno about that one.

Later
-stuckie

RAMUNE meaning lemon is a good theory, but my brother who speaks/reads japanese and lives in Tokyo told me that yes, it is called Ramune, but they also have Cola flavour, and he is more aware of the Cola - never seen the tiki lemon one before. Luckily, he also said if he sees some in the store, he will bring it next week when he comes to Toronto (which he almost couldn't cause of of the overblown SARS panic - please people, we're not all infected lepers here in Toronto!)

While we're still on this topic, here's some overkill. Naomi found a Japanese site, and sure enough, Ramune comes from the word lemonade, by way of a pretty long history in fact. She ran the japanese text on the site thru an auto-translator, so it doesn't all make sense, but anyway here's the text, followed by a link to the site....

"The soda bottle is born in British the process which carries out a cork at the marble which is also the special feature of a soda bottle -- now -- about 150 years -- before -- it is said that it was suggested in Britain It greatly spread centering on Europe those days. Even now, a soda bottle may be unearthed from the ruins of a castle of an aristocrat of those days.
The drink soda which grew up in Japan It was carried into Nagasaki(South island; Kyushu) by Japan at the time in the end of a curtain, and manufacture started after that also in Kobe and Yokohama. The ball soda which carries out a cork at a marble was in fashion from the Meiji (After samurai-EDO period, beginning of Western influenced culture;1868-1911) 20s (1890 around) , and it grew up as a having-100 years of history drink until it continued till the present of Taisho(1912-1925), Showa (1926-1989), and Heisei (1989-still).

Since it sounded [ loud ] "methamphetamine" when the Perry Black Ships in the U.S.(He is the famous as the man who negotiated to "shell-fish-Japan to open the country for trading at this era), arrive at Nagasaki in Uraga, "carbonic acid lemonade is loaded on the warship, and the important person of the Edo Shogunate was made to drink, and opening a cork, the episode of the government official having been surprised and having applied the hand to the sword of the waist involuntarily, saying, "Is it a new-type gun?" remains. A name called a soda is called this thing that spoke the word "lemonade."

A soda is the season word of summer. In the world of a haiku poem, the soda is the season word of summer. As for sound of the word "soda", a refreshing breeze is felt with the scorching heat of summer. If only a trumpet is carried out and a bottle is leaned, the sound of a glass ball will bring about cool and a dream.

Why is the marble contained? As for the soda, unlike other soft drinks, the marble is carrying out the role of the "cork" of a product. By the pressure of the gas contained in contents, mouth rubber and a marble are stuck by pressure and it has become a cork. Incidentally, "BI" of a marble is the abbreviation for Portuguese "glass" (glass), and is called thing of a glass ball."

http://www.sinfonia.or.jp/~isd-oka/sub/story/image/story.htm

-Randy

After reading that detailed and entertaining history, I could only think of one thing:

"ALL YOUR SODA ARE BELONG TO US!!"