Ichigo Daifuku! Strawberry Season in Japan Brings this Classic Mochi Dessert

Beginning with Christmas Cake in December, winter is the ultimate strawberry season in Japan. Before Valentine’s Day rolls around, supermarkets will be filled with variations of the fruit grown  that with the advent of green houses has come to be a favorite of the winter season.

If you visit a fruit specialty store, you’ll see range and variation of Japanese strawberries. Among  the most popular varieties are tochiotome, (とちおとめ) amaou あまおう (an acronym of akai, marui, ookii, umai 赤い・丸い・大きい・うまい, meaning red, round, big, and delicious) and benihoppe 紅ほっぺ (which translates to crimson cheeks). Tochigi, Fukuoka, and Hokkaido are just a few of the prefectures renowned for their strawberries. 

There delectable treats can be eaten in so many different ways: in strawberry shortcake, drizzled in condensed milk, in parfaits, made into sandwiches (yes, fruit sandwiches are totally a dessert here!)

But our favorite way to eat strawberries at Get Around, is in daifuku 大福. You’ve probably heard of mochi, which in recent years has become a favorite as a dessert topping on things like frozen yogurt outside of Japan. Daifuku is a dessert where a pouch of soft mochi is filled with a variety of things, though the classic pairing is sweetened red bean paste. The strawberry daifuku is thought to have come onto the scene in the mid-80s, and while there’s record of different shops selling the ichigo around this time in Mie and in Tokyo, the origin is not definitive.

Many of the traditional and new wave wagashi stores  offer up flashy variations of this strawberry treat. Now in addition to red bean and white bean (respectively called an  あん、and shiro-an 白あん), ichigo daifuku filled with whipped cream or sponge cake is readily available. And there are options for every price range and palette, you’ll find ichigo daifuku in supermarkets, high end department stores, and convenience stores. 

Here are a few examples to get you started on your ichigo daifuku journey. 

The Classic

Oosumi Tamaya Specialty Store

Oosumi Tamaya is a wagashi shop that is known for its careful selection of suppliers. For 94 years, this family business has assembled the finest ingredients from different regions, and the desserts served here are a true celebration of Japanese quality. According to their site, the red adzuki beans come from farmers in Hokkaido and Kyoto, the rice flour from Miyazaki, and the water from natural onsens in Nigata. As you can see in the picture above, Oosumi Tamaya has crushed beans embedded in the mochi itself. The price comes in at 249JPY per piece. 

Supermarket

Yamazaki An Ichigo Daifuku

This daifuku can be found in supermarkets everywhere as well as in  in Yamazaki Pan convenience stores. One of the most affordable daifuku you can find, at supermarkets the item will cost about 100JPY, while at convenience stores, it will come in slightly more expensive at about 130JPY. This is a recommendation for those who don’t mind red bean and enjoy the extra sweetness. The strawberries used here are slightly tart, and the red bean is made quite sweet to balance that out. 

Convenience Store 

White Chocolate Ichigo Daifuku Found at Lawson

This item can be found chilling in the sweets section in Lawson, and for those who are big fans of the chocolate and strawberry combination, this is a big recommendation. Filled with white chocolate ganache, the daifuku also contains one large juicy strawberry to complement the creamy ganache, and is blanketed with a soft and stretchy sheet of mochi. As you can see, the price of 1 comes in at 180JPY after tax which is less expensive than specialty stores, but not the cheapest.  

New Generation Specialty Store

Ichigoan

  Ichigoan takes classic flavors and fuses them with high quality read bean. At Ichigoan, you can choose from three different versions of red bean: classic red bean with bean pieces, red bean with whipped cream, matcha,  and condensed milk. The store specializes in ONLY ichigo daifuku, and is very particularly about the quality of strawberries which are shipped in from a specialist in Hokkaido. For those who want to purchase the berries alongside the daifuku, strawberry gift boxes of 20 are available for 1800JPY. The cost of daifuku ranges from 250-270JPY per piece. According to their site, matcha is the current best seller.  

Get Around Favorite: Ichigo Warabi

Sanshodo

And now we’ve arrived at our top ranking pick! Sanshodo’s Ichigo Warabi is a marriage  between two different classic desserts. Warabi mochi is a delicate sweet mochi with a jelly-like texture, often eaten with sweet kinako powder and a molasses-like syrup called kuromitsu. In the Ichigo Warabi, a blanket of sweet powdered warabi covers an enormous XL strawberry and a thin layer of smooth red bean paste. This is by far the most delicate of our featured daifuku…and unfortunately, the most expensive… You can order 3 online for 1620JPY, meaning each piece is slightly over 500JPY. (Note, this does not include shipping.) While it may cost almost double some of our other features, the Ichigo Warabi is a true experience, and in spite of the price, it might have you coming back for a  second order!