On Monday this week, June 3, Hakata JR was the seat of an event to celebrate the popular Fukuoka made manju ‘Hakata Torimon’ setting a new world record for most sales of bean paste-filled confectionary in a calendar year. Meigetsu Co.’s Fukuoka favorite took the top spot of this new record category by selling a whopping ¥7.59 billion worth of buns from January to December of last year. Delighting peckish customers since 1993, Hakata Torimon are renowned for blending the delicate sweetness of Japanese wagashi (traditional Japanese confectionery) and more traditional western ingredients like cream and butter – approximately 64 million are made every year. President of Meigetsu Co. Shinichiro Akimaru said upon receiving his world record certificate, “We want to keep making sweets that everyone loves heading towards our 100th anniversary,” this year marking the 90th year the company has exciting customers from their base in Hakata. Source: Mainichi Shimbun, 6/3/2019
In the spirit of record breaking, we at Fukuoka Now decided to celebrate Hakata Torimon’s recent success by breaking a few records of our own, as well as a few sugar free summer pledges. Eight manju, three co-workers, one challenge – for each of us to eat as many manju as we could in five minutes. To the victor would go the bragging rights and the sugar rush of champions, to the losers, eternal shame and the nausea which all adults should feel after eating far too many sweets.
Straight out of the gates we all realized that going out to lunch that day had been a massive mistake, the creamy sweetness of the bean paste waging war against the trio of karaage teishoku eaten just hours before. Maarten, who hadn’t eaten a Torimon manju before, was the first to have a crack at it. Skeptical, he dug in and came out with a smile, albeit one that did not last too long. Irene was next and breaking through the packet with well versed precision, broke into the lead. I attempted to catch up with a double manju maneuver, stuffing two into my mouth with little thought to social grace and the capabilities of the human jaw. The result was horrific but in the spirit of journalistic integrity we’ve captured it for you here.
After a few minutes the bell went off and the dust settled. By my feet there were two plastic wrappers and to Irene’s name another two, but the stand out winner was Maarten with a terrifying four manju conquered. Fame and fortune were his, as well as a fairly bloated stomach and the inability to walk for a good five minutes. Having broken the world record, Hakata Torimon went and broke us too.
Despite varying degrees of sluggishness for the next 15 minutes, in the end we all felt like winners, having eaten some of the finest confectionery Fukuoka has to offer. Perfect for a gift or just a quick snack this local favorite is sure to spice up your day!
