White Day

In Japan there are numerous occasions where a gift is appropriate and often required, and today happens to be one of those times. March 14th is known in Japan as White Day, where men have an obligation to give presents to the girls that gave them chocolate on Valentine's Day (on which day girls feel an obligation to give chocolate to male coworkers, friends, etc).

Here's my rather bitter take on Valentine's Day and White Day.

In my humble opinion, gift-giving should come from the heart. It should be about generosity and sharing. I feel that if you give someone a gift and expect something in return simply because you gave them something, the focus turns away from the person receiving the gift and onto yourself, which makes the act of gift-giving seem a bit selfish. And for the person on the receiving end, having to give something because it's required of you makes gift-giving become a simple act of reciprocity, without any of the feeling that makes gifts special.

Having said that, there was one gift that I put some thought into. On Valentine's Day you see a lot of truffles, small chocolate squares and round bon-bons in pretty little boxes. For the most part you're paying for wrapping and presentation. In the case of a friend's mother, she gave me 10-pieces of individually wrapped chocolate that were tied into a stack. Each 2-inch square piece is a simple flat piece of chocolate mixed with a variety of unique flavors, and she chose that one because its originality and simplicity stood out from everything else in the store. I got home and ate the first piece thinking the tiny stack probably cost about $20.

I should preface this by saying that I spent the last month testing different chocolates to figure out what makes some more expensive than others, and after eating tons of chocolate that cost more than $3 a piece, my tastes have become sensitive to good quality chocolate. You'd probably think I was retarded if you heard how much I spent on this "taste-test" so I'm keeping that a secret. Anyhow, after eating the first piece in the stack, I realized that each piece probably cost between $4 and $6 and there were ten of them. Pretty shocking, but believable when thinking about how much this woman spends on other stuff (sometimes it's nice to have friends from wealthy families!).

Since she had spent time trying to find something original, I got something unique for her. If this were back in the States, I'd be weirded out thinking it was for a friend's mother, but since it's Japan that makes it okay. I found a store in Kyoto that sells a high quality tea called Uji Matcha and they were selling sweets for White Day. I had some delivered and got some for myself, too, because they looked really good and I wanted to know what makes Uji Matcha so good.White chocolate covered in Uji Matcha Tea powder. So nice! Not too sweet and the tea blends well with the white chocolate. They just melt in your mouth. Each piece is about the size of my pinky finger until the first bend. There were twenty in the small box and I greedily ate them all in one go.I absolutely love these! The outside is Cherry Blossom mochi and the inside is some kind of paste made with Uji Matcha. The tea is fragrant but not overwhelming. So smooth and creamy. Green tea usually has a bitter aftertaste, but this one doesn't taste bitter at all and is so good! I might have to order more before they sell out! (I won't tell you the price, because again, you'd think I was retarded.) They look kind of big in the photo, but each one is the size of when you put your thumb and forefinger together to make a circle. They come six in a box, and I forced myself to use restraint by not eating them all in one go. I gobbled up three yesterday, and just had the other three a minute ago.

Additionally for myself I got some Green Tea mixed with toasted rice (Genmai Cha) and flavored with Uji Matcha. I haven't opened the package yet but can't wait to try that out, too!