- Are luxury Japanese strawberries worth the price?
Just yesterday, I was at Tokyo Central,
a local Japanese supermarket here
in Orange County, California,
and I saw they had some strawberries direct from Japan.
This box of two sets of strawberries cost $46.
And in this video, I'm gonna be telling you
whether these strawberries are worth the price.
Now over here on this side,
we've got some strawberries from Hakata,
and you might be thinking,
"Chris, those strawberries don't look ripe."
You know what?
Those are actually Japanese white strawberries.
These are called Miyabino, and they're from Kyushu,
the south of Japan in Hakata.
Over here we have Amaou.
these are from Kumamoto also in the South of Japan.
This side, these eight strawberries
were the most expensive, $30 for these eight strawberries.
And then these, what do we got over here?
Seven strawberries, that's almost $16.
The red strawberries are cheaper.
So let's go ahead and dive in.
I'll show you what these strawberries look like.
We'll talk about what they taste.
And then after I do the taste test
I'll tell you a little bit about
why these strawberries are so expensive.
Okay, so I'm back with the three strawberries.
And the first one I'm gonna start with right here
is the strawberry from Kumamoto.
These were the strawberries that were $16 for seven.
Now I wanna cut the strawberry in half
to show you what these strawberries look like inside.
This strawberry, red inside as most strawberries are.
By the way, as I was setting this up,
it reminded me of like a Korean mukbang,
where they have all that food.
I don't have all that food.
I've got three strawberries
that probably cost as much as all that Korean food.
So let's go ahead and dive in.
It's a good strawberry flavor.
It's pretty soft, it's kind of softer
and probably moister than most American strawberries.
It flew here a long way from Japan.
And so this is a little bit probably on the ripe side.
These are really good strawberry.
The question is
is this strawberry worth
about $2?
I'm not entirely sure this one is.
We're gonna give this one on the scale of five Tophers,
it's gonna get three Tophers for these strawberries.
Now let's go on to the white strawberry.
When Osika and I were in Tokyo last year before the pandemic
we saw some white strawberries
in some of the department stores
and they were priced at $10 per one strawberry.
Now they were a little bit bigger than these,
but what's so interesting about these white strawberries
is they're actually white on the inside.
They're white on the outside
and they're white on the inside.
And they have a magnificent strawberry smell
from the outside.
This one, it doesn't actually smell
that much like a strawberry, the red one, but the white one,
it's, I mean, the aroma is really quite magnificent.
So let's go ahead and dive into the white strawberry.
Wow, wow.
I feel like Mark Weins right now,
and my eyes wanna get really big.
This is like
a flavor explosion
in a party in my mouth.
This is the best strawberry I've ever had,
because when we were in Tokyo last year
we did not get the white strawberries
because we were too cheap.
And so this is why I bought them this time
because I was like, well, $30.
And it comes with four white strawberries.
That's better than $10 for one white strawberry.
I'm really glad
that I bought these because
this white strawberry
is amazing.
It has like, it's a really intense strawberry flavor,
the sweet part of the strawberry
but not the sour part of the strawberry.
So you get all of the delicious part without the sour part.
And there is no kind of like sour aftertaste
that sometimes strawberries give you.
Just smooth, it's almost like you took strawberry jam,
like the sweetest part, like the condensed strawberry
and just condensed it down to one place.
I just want to smell this all day.
It's really good.
This white strawberry, Topher,
what's it gonna get?
This one?
Five Tophers.
We get five Tophers for the white, best strawberry
we have ever had.
All right, let's move on to the last one.
This is the red strawberry that came
with the white strawberries.
And so the white strawberries
in this package for $30 for eight strawberries
was I work out to be a little more than $3 a strawberry,
like 3.50 a strawberry.
The red ones are also light on the inside.
Have you ever seen a red strawberry on the outside
that's completely white on the inside.
So this is clearly a similar variety, but is not all white.
So let's go ahead and dive into the red on the outside
white on the inside strawberry.
This one also has a good strawberry scent
but it's not quite as strawberry scented as the white ones.
(bright upbeat music)
And it's good, but
it's not as amazing as the white one.
The flavor is not quite as intense as the white one is.
It is more sweet than the red red ones were.
And it's not sour at all.
It's a really good strawberry,
but it's not as amazing as the
entirely white strawberry.
So the red one
with the white inside is going to get four Tophers.
So overall, the question is
were the white strawberries worth $30 for eight strawberries
or $30 for four whites drivers?
I think they were, it was definitely worth $3 and 50 cents,
but I have all these leftover strawberries.
What am I gonna do with them?
You know, I watched this, the Paul Hollywood video
on YouTube where he eats a like $500 strawberry
in Japan and he ate the stem.
And I don't think I'm quite bold enough to eat the stem
but we do have a bunny rabbit named MacGyver.
And I think these are destined for him.
Now, the question I'm sure you're wondering
and Topher is wondering,
is how is it that the Japanese make these strawberries
that are so much better
than strawberry has grown anywhere else?
Now for that answer, let's go to someone actually qualified
to give it to you a real and Japanese strawberry farmer
when Osika and I were in Japan last year,
we visited this strawberry farm in Fukushima.
Let's hear how he makes his strawberries so sweet.
Perhaps you can tell us how long have you owned this farm?
(speaking in foreign language)
- What makes Fukushima strawberries so sweet?
(speaking in foreign language)
- Well, you know, it's interesting.
I looked up the statistics and Japan is seventh in the world
for strawberry production,
but number one in the world
for dessert strawberry production.
The Japanese have a love affair with strawberries.
And these white strawberries, they're actually pretty new.
Most strawberry farms in Japan,
actually all of them are indoors.
They have to be, because the temperature in the winter
when strawberries ripen, January, February, March
is too cold outside.
So they're all grown indoors.
And they're typically grown just by like one or two farmers
that own these farms.
Lovingly care for them.
The strawberry farm we toured was absolutely amazing.
And these white strawberries,
they haven't been around forever.
They're a new strain and the Japanese people love them.
And I can totally see why.
And so if you see these white strawberries
exported from Japan to be wherever you are
I'd highly encourage you to get them.
If you're planning a trip to Japan, when they do reopen,
definitely be on the lookout for the white strawberries,
you won't regret it.
And it definitely is worth it.
Oh, just one more point before I conclude,
when I said the Japanese love strawberries
you might be wondering, Chris,
how much really do the Japanese love strawberries?
'Cause I'm not Japanese and I love strawberries,
they love strawberries.
Everywhere you go there are strawberry pastries,
strawberry desserts, but in particular,
in particular around Christmas in Japan
the Christmas tradition in Japan is to eat KFC
and have a strawberry cake.
Strawberry cakes are so popular at Christmas time
that people in Japan have to pre-order them weeks ahead
so that they can have their strawberry cake.
And in fact, here in the U S at every Japanese bakery
Japanese grocery store, that's what they sell.
And they pre-order it here too.
So if you want a Japanese strawberry cake for Christmas
even in the States you have to pre-order it
weeks ahead of time.
Well, as usual, we want say goodbye,
'cause we'll see you in one of our videos right here.
Hey, check this one out for things to do in Fukushima, Japan
where we are picking some strawberries
at one of Japan's famous strawberry farms.