Chimasu Asian snack subscription box review

Even as a grown up, there's something very exciting about the postie dropping off a box full of surprise goodies every month, so I'm a sucker for mystery box subscriptions. As you'll know if you're a regular follower of my blog, I'm also a huge fan of exotic cuisine - you may like to check out my country-by-country globe-cooking recipe index - so Chimasu instantly appealed to me on both levels. It was started in 2014 by two snack fanatics who returned to the UK from a holiday across East and South-East Asia and were unable to find their new favourite snacks. After months of searching, they finally managed to get their hands on them and, realising how popular they were with their friends, they decided to share the new tastes with everyone. And so chimasu.com was started !

Every month, Chimasu will deliver a lovely big box (about the size of a shoe box) stuffed with at least a dozen exotic snacks from countries across East and South-East Asia, such as China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines and Singapore. When you sign up, you can give a few details about your preferences to help choose which products will go into your box. You can buy a one-off box for £20, or sign up for month to month (£18 per box) or 3, 6 or 12 months (the longer you sign up for, the cheaper it works out) - UK delivery is free and I have a special code - BANGKOK - which will get you £6 off your first box, as well as a free Japanese Kit Kat.

You can see the contents of previous boxes on their webste and Facebox page, but here's what we got in the October box.

As soon as they started pulling things out of the box, the Madhouse kids were squealing with delight and asking to try things ! They were immediately drawn to the sweets - Hi-Chews, which are famous flavoured candies from Japan similar to Starburst in the UK (we got strawberry and grape flavours) and Kopiko, a strong & rich coffee candy. In the cute panda packaging are Kabaya Milk Chocolate Biscuits and on the left are Dream Animals - vegetable flavoured biscuits with 45 different animal shapes. We love the packaging, with a list of animals in English, German, French and Dutch, which is a fun way of revising vocabulary for school ! 

Lots of things made us say "ooh they look a bit strange" or "hmm never heard of those" or "I can't imagine what they will taste like", which is exactly the reaction that you're looking for if you've signed up for an exotic snack experience. These Soy Sauce Flavoured Rice Crackers totally fit the bill - and they even turned out to be very nice !

Most of the snacks require no preparation, with the exception of a couple of packs of noodles, which just need to be soaked in boiling water for a couple of minutes. We got two packs : Gourmet Spicy Shin Ramyun Noodle Soup and Gourmet Mild Soon Veggie Ramyun Noodle Soup, both from Korea.

Next, we discovered two Sesame Pastries and two Jasmine tea bags, along with two Spicy Flavour Rolling Bite roasted seaweed snacks - the kids were disappointed because they thought it was green candy at first. It was better than we expected though !

Banana Kick are basically banana flavoured Wotsits from  Korea - very strange but also rather tasty. They're great for pranking your friends because everyone pops one in their mouth expecting it to taste of fake cheese then does a double take !

Finally, going clockwise from top left, we have Lotte Rakuten Bear Cake (cute koala biscuits that come in loads of different designs), wasabi peas (that look like mini zombie brains - great for Halloween !), a Pu-Erh tea bag and Black Thunder, a cocoa cookie chocolate bar from Japan.

We loved the fact that we had never tried any of the snacks in the box before and the authentic, exotic packaging made it all even more exciting (although we did appreciate the translated labels stuck on the back so we knew what was what !). If you're looking for an original gift idea for a foodie friend, a one-off box would make a great Christmas present and if you like the idea for yourself, don't forget the discount code. If you sign up before the 10th, you'll get this month's box - any later and you'll start off with next month's box.

For more information : https://www.chimasu.com/

Disclosure : We received a box in order to write an honest review.