I've referred to Manjyuu often, and it's actually eaten by many Japanese people. Manjyuu often includes some azuki bean paste, and the one I'm going to introduce this time also has the same paste.
This Manjyuu shop opened in my city last year, and I bought its Manjyuu several times just because the Manjyuu this shop sells is really unique. We Japanese don't have brown sugar usually, but I've seen some coffee shops that served coffee with some brown sugar taste.
The surface is very shiny and the bun sticks to your teeth so easily. And compared to ordinary Manjyuu, this one is much softer. The black kanji and hiragana say "The Brown Sugar Manjyuu".
According to the website of this shop, the Azuki beans of this paste, or Anko, were harvested in Hokkaido, a big island in northern Japan, and the brown sugar came from Okinawa, a southernmost island of Japan. It seems brown sugar canes can be harvested only in tropical areas like the Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam and so forth. The average high in Okinawa in winter is about 17 degrees Celsius, or about 62 degrees Fahrenheit.
You wouldn't be able to try this Manjyuu, but some sweets with brown sugar taste very good in my book. Give the sugar a try =)
