The authentic TASTE of Japan – direct to Hong Kong
Japanese Food Festival launched today at TASTE

HONG KONG (29 July 2005)

A three-week celebration of Japanese Food Festival begins today at TASTE's Festival Walk store, where almost 200 new Japanese food items sourced from all over the country will go on sale for the first time.

Hong Kongers have sophisticated tastes and know Japanese food well. So TASTE has traveled the length of Japan to source new products that they might only have been able to try on holiday before. Now, they can enjoy a kind of journey through Japan right here.

TASTE has selected new and traditional items from the regions of Tochigi, Okinawa and Kagawa, many of which are new to the Hong Kong market and exclusive to TASTE.

Tochigi is known not only for its stunning scenery but for its large and extraordinarily sweet strawberries, or ichigo. TASTE has selected a vast range of fragrant Tochigi strawberry products for the festival, including pies, cakes and candies.

They include the Ichigo Twist Pie, which resembles a croissant but is filled with fresh strawberry and apple puree, the puff-style Ichigo Choucake, and the uniquely shaped Tochiotome Leaf Pie, with a deliciously sweet strawberry centre.

There are also strawberry and white chocolate waffles, such as Tochi Otome Choco Sand, and the beautiful Ichigo Choco in Cookie gift packs, as well as Tochigi egg rolls, and two varieties of strawberry daifuku, or mochi cakes.

Tochigi is also home to Japan's famous Utsunomiya dumplings, and TASTE now offers customers dumpling-style Gyoza Potato Chips.

In addition, TASTE presents a new range of bean products, including crispy Yuba Shio Sen snacks, and healthy tofu-flavoured Yuba Konnyyaku, which aids digestion and can be eaten either as a snack or in a hot pot.

Okinawa has long been famous for its golden beaches, and for its golden brown sugar, which apart from smelling and tasting great, has also been found to have health-giving properties. Brown sugar is high in iron and can help prevent fatty build-ups forming in the arteries.

Brown sugar snacks are enjoying a surge in popularity around Asia, and TASTE is flying in brown sugar products from Washita, the brand run by the Okinawan regional government. They include Okinawa Kashi Kokuto Tablet candies, which have different shapes to make them appealing to children.

For the first time in Hong Kong, there are brown sugar snacks like Okinawa Kashi Chisuko Iroiro, a special kind of cookies available in three flavours including macha tea and gettou (a medicinal herb from Okinawa). There are also Okinawa Kashi Tannafakuru brown sugar cakes, and karinto, a traditional Japanese snack.

Brown sugar is also used in savoury dishes, and TASTE is importing two varieties of beef curry – Oishii Okinawa 96 Curry, with papaya, and Oishii Okinawa 58 Curry, with apple and tomato – both of which can be prepared in minutes for a quick and healthy lunch.

Other Okinawa delicacies at TASTE include Okinawa Soba Cup, made from Japanese soba noodles and Okinawa roast pork, and a range of flavoured teas made only in Okinawa.

Kagawa has become one of the favourite destinations of Hong Kong visitors to Japan, thanks to the film 'Crying Out Love in the Centre of the World' , which was partly shot there. The region is also famous for its excellent noodles.

During TASTE's Japanese Food Festival, Kubota's Tesage Series of Kagawa-made soba and udon noodles will be available here, all of which are made from natural ingredients and are additive-free.

Tesage soba noodles come in four flavours - original, sweet potato, black sesame and wasabi – and the udon noodles are available in miso or matsutake mushroom flavour. Matsutake mushrooms are part of a highly prized fungi family and are usually sold as a winter delicacy. All of the noodles are quick and easy to prepare.

The Japanese Food Festival at TASTE runs from July 29 to August 18.

Customer Enquiry:
TASTE
Tel: 2265 7479

Media Enquiry:
Ms Jasmine Hui
TASTE's media hotline: 2687 5602

About TASTE
TASTE, a new member of A.S. Watson Group (ASW), is a new generation of lifestyle food stores that provides customers with "More than Food" shopping experience by adding fun and excitement to their daily grocery shopping. It aims to become the first choice food store for Hong Kong's increasingly sophisticated and health-conscious modern urban consumers by enriching their tastes and lifestyles. Located in Festival Walk, the first TASTE store was open in November 2004, and features more than 25,000 quality food items sourced from around the world.

ASW, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hutchison Whampoa Limited, with a history dating back to 1828 has evolved into an international retail and manufacturing business with operations in 31 countries across Asia and Europe. Today, the Group operates over 6,200 retail stores, provides a full range of beverages from bottled water, fruit juices, soft drinks to world's finest wine labels, and employs more than 87,000 staff worldwide.

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