5+ Best Chocolates for Japanese Valentine’s Day 2016

In my opinion, early February until St. Valentine’s Day is the best season to visit Ginza district in Tokyo.
Let’s have a quick review of “Japanese” Valentine’s Day I talked about in the past years.

1. Valentine’s Day customs in Japan developed as the day when girls give chocolates to boys.
2. Today, it is like a festival of chocolates where world-famous chocolatiers gather in big shopping districts in Japan.

If you are interested in how it became so, I’ve explained it here.
Now it’s time to see Best Chocolates 2016 I selected!

Caffarel (Tokyo Station)

The first one is not a chocolate, but a mousse. It is all red for love!

Mousse cake – Valentino Rosso by Caffarel

The flavor of mousse is pears, and it is decorated with cherries and bitter chocolates.

Pear mousse, cherries and bitter chocolates

This cake looks passionate and tastes very delicate. For me, just being sweet is not enough for cakes at all. I love this.
Valentino Rosso 583 yen

Where are chocolates? I promise, they are just fantastic!

Cacao Sampaca (Daimaru)

Artistic chocolates are musts for gourmets. Have you had some of them? This year, I tried Cacao Sampaca from Barcelona, which sells to the Spanish loyal family.

Cacao Sampaca Box

Talking from basics, these chocolates are made of fillings (called praline, etc. Depends on the ingredients) and surrounding chocolates. The fillings have various flavors, and it becomes the flavor of the chocolate. In this box, there are six different fruit flavors.

Cacao Sampaca Frutas 6 pieces

I wish if only there are screens that can share flavors!
Frutas 2,916 yen

La Petite Marquise (Takashimaya)

Incredibly, there are BLUE chocolates in the world!

Quernons d’Ardoise by La Petite Marquise

Sweetened nuts are coated by the blue chocolate. It was very sweet, but not too sweet.

BLUE chocolates & its fillings

It is a local patisserie in France who came to Japan for the first time. My long-time opinion is that it is not a must to export their products that they are proud of if they don’t feel like doing so, but at least there is someone to become so happy to have these!

Quernons d’Ardoise 2,268 yen for 9 pieces

Theo Broma (Matsuya Ginza)

But there are tablet chocolates, too. They also offer us delicate tastes. Matsuya Ginza department store has a lot of them.

Theobroma Tablet Chocolates (left: salt, right: nuts)

Salt flavor chocolates

If you are used to normal chocolates, I push this kind of tastes.
1,080 yen/tablet

Cuauhtemoc (Daimaru)

Even if you are not courageous enough to buy chocolates price-tagged thousands of yen, you still have chances to try some good chocolates. For example, this box of three chocolates is 648 yen.

A box of 3 chocolates – Cuauhtemoc

The flavors are champagne, rose and nuts. Good qualities.

Reasonable, but still good tastes!!

In the Valentine’s Day chocolate sections at department stores, we can find things like this in many shops. If you found a great chocolatier in the leaflet but it was too challenging to buy some, it’s too early to give up. Just head to the shop that attracted your attention, and you’ll find reasonable sets with smaller number of chocolates.

Bonus: Demel (Matsuya Ginza)

I updated pig-shaped chocolates by Demel last year. Here’s how its inside is like.

Demel’s Big Pig Chocolates

They are available this year again.
Demel is one of the leading chocolatiers in Austria, and you’ll see them in many department stores, but these pig chocolates are sold limited in Matsuya. Not only tastes, they are bigger than normal chocolates, so these pigs are so satisfactory to your stomach. I recommend this.

Tokyo is a city for gourmets. Seriously, I think that there are few chances in the world to get famous chocolates as many as this in one place.
When you are interested in
If you are in Tokyo in early February, why not visit department stores?

See MORE chocolates in Tokyo!

• 2 Department Stores Recommended in Ginza to Get Chocolates for St. Valentine’s Day