You can’t go to Tokyo with out seeing them. These pale-yellow bins of individually wrapped bite-size desserts are emblazoned with pictures of the capital’s most well-known vacationer points of interest and, typically, with a few of Japan’s most recognizable animated characters.
Every 12 months, a whole lot of 1000’s of gold-ribbon-wrapped packages of Tokyo Banana are bought across the Japanese capital’s transportation hubs and vacationer districts and branded as the town’s official snack.
But what does Tokyo Banana really need to do with Tokyo, a metropolis that doesn’t have any banana timber?
Unlike many Japanese treats, that are made with elements native to numerous 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 largest metropolis and opened to vacationers from around the globe, 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 house to the world’s oldest lodge, a scorching springs resort that opened to visitors 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 neighborhood specialty.
“Tokyo is the place where various people come from all over Japan and it becomes a hometown for them,” a Grapestone consultant tells CNN.
“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 might be fluffy on the surface and crammed with banana-flavored cream.
Or, as Tokyo-based tour information Katie Thompson places it, a “fancy Twinkie.”
Tokyo Banana is an ideal instance of omiyage, a Japanese custom by which individuals who have just lately traveled convey items — often edible ones — again to their associates, households and colleagues.
Like so many Japanese customs, there are nuances to picking and shopping for the proper omiyage.
They are extra than simply souvenirs. Unlike within the West, the place a returning traveler may convey again a magnet or T-shirt for a beloved one, omiyage is nearly all the time one thing to eat or drink that have to be consumed quickly after the customer’s return.
By that logic, the items are often meals merchandise that solely come from one area, or which might be recognized 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 may be a Japanese custom, Tokyo Banana’s largest market is international vacationers, not locals, a transfer that the corporate says was intentional. Grapestone tells CNN that the corporate was supplied retail house at Haneda Airport within the Nineties, which prompted them to invent Tokyo Banana within the first place.
With its Tokyo branding and the product’s title clearly written in English, Tokyo Banana shortly grew to become related to its namesake metropolis.
Jeff Lui, a Canadian residing 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 distinct story.
TikTokers from exterior of Japan make a beeline for the treats once they arrive in Tokyo. Some showcase the uncommon flavors they’ve snagged, whereas others give tips about which of them to convey again as items 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 need to purchase some for themselves.
Thompson, who has been residing in Japan for about eight years, admits that Tokyo Bananas are usually not 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 family 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 a number of questions from family members in his native Canada once 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 numerous instructions once they’re shopping for foodie souvenirs, particularly if they’re repeat guests to Japan who need to dig a little bit deeper.
In current years, Tokyo Banana has made an effort to grow to be 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 within the modern Ginza neighborhood.
The model has collaborated with fashionable homegrown characters like Pikachu, Chiikawa, Hello Kitty and Doraemon. And, in fact, 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 preferred 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 12 months, however on their web site it says that Tokyo Banana is the most well-liked meals memento in Japan’s capital.
The model tells CNN that when you laid out each single Tokyo Banana bought in a 12 months, the tiny desserts would attain throughout the Pacific Ocean from Tokyo to the United States.
Usually, although, they journey by air.
EDITOR’S NOTE: CNN’s Soyon Nishioka contributed reporting.