Cookies are always a great snack to have as either a sweet desert or something to just eat when you’re bored. The true beauty of cookies is that there is a flavor and type of cookie for everyone, but who makes the best cookies, and which ones are the best? When it comes to flavor and quality, Japanese companies have the rest of the world beat. Here is a list that will hopefully help open your eyes to the sweet and delectable world of Japanese cookies for you to try!

10. Moominvalley Chocolate Biscuit

To those who have seen or heard of the Swedish comic characters the Moomins, give yourself a pat on the back and enjoying knowing the different variety of characters from Moominvalley have been baked into a chocolate cookie biscuit for your consumption. For those who do not know the characters, you can still enjoy the creamy chocolate baked into wheat cookies as a good snack to eat that is high in calcium. These are perfect for people who are looking for a hint of chocolate as the chocolate flavor is not too overpowering and it creates a good mix between the chocolate and the cookie. The box also contains a lot more cookies than one might think, so take comfort in knowing that there’s plenty of cookies to eat! The best tech for these cookies would be to eat them with a glass of cold milk, or if you want to try something really different you can crush them and put them in the glass of milk and drink it with the crushed cookie parts!

9. Bourbon Choco & Coffee Biscuit

Bourbon has been making cookies in Japan since 1924, so it’s no surprise that they have all the cookie making strategies to make delicious cookies. They have many popular products in Japan, but their Choco & Coffee Biscuit are one of the most unique amongst the cookies offered in Japan. It features a nice buttery biscuit that has a very pleasant crunch when bitten into, it doesn’t break as much as it does flake after each bite. The best part about these cookies is of course the delicious sweet chocolate and rich coffee mixed cream filling in the center of each one. The cream filling literally melts in your mouth with every bite as it covers all nine thousand taste buds. These cookies are best eaten with hot coffee, tea, or milk. I truly enhances the already great flavor of these cookies.

8. Meiji Hello Panda

Amongst all of the animal themed flavor filled cookie snacks floating around the market in Japan, Hello Panda is by far the best tasting and probably most recognizable since it was the first of its kind, being released in Japan in 1979. Each cookie features the too cute for words Hello Panda mascot playing a variety of sports and is shaped like a panda head. The images are so cute you almost feel bad about eating it, but that perfect crisp crunch you get when biting into a Hello Panda cookie makes up for it. After breaking through the sweet crunchy exterior, you are then rewarded with the sweet creamy filling of your choice of amazing flavors such as chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, etc. If you’re looking for a new way of eating Hello Panda, try dipping them in Nutella, or throwing them into an almost finished jar of Nutella with some ice cream to finish that last hard to get bit of Nutella on the sides of the jar. It’s a roller coaster of flavor.

7. Furuta Sequoia Strawberry Chocolate Bar

This cookie bar is the ultimate blending of flavors. It has many layers of rich flavor that when combined creates a completely new taste. It starts with the thick milky sweet strawberry outside. But, the strawberry layer does not wrap all the way around the cookie, no it’s much more sophisticated than that. The bottom part of the cookie is made of smooth milk chocolate that helps enhance and offset the sweetness of the strawberry with its own chocolaty goodness. All of this, wrapped around a sweet crunchy vanilla wafer. Every bite is a smooth, sweet, and crunchy texture that combines all three layers of flavor into one ultimate flavor that is something one can only understand by eating it. It is all the deliciousness of a Neapolitan shake thrown into a wafer cookie for the ultimate snacking experience. It goes great as a compliment to ice cream for an enticing desert.

6. Meito Chocolate Cookie Crunch

Meito’s Chocolate Cookie Crunch is a must try for any chocolate lover. Each bar is thick with rich milk chocolate and stuffed with tons of cookie crumbles to give a nice and satisfying crunch to every bite. This is a good compliment to the smooth and sweet milk chocolate. It creates this perfect blend where the chocolate has a very good bite to it while still remaining very soft to eat and enjoy. Each cookie comes individually wrapped so it can be easily shared with your friends, though after eating one, you may not end up wanting to share any with your friends.

5. Meito Puku Puku Tai Fish Strawberry Wafer

This wafer cookie is by far one of the best strawberry flavored wafer cookies out there, if not the best. The wafer itself is very fun and playful-looking since it looks like a fish. A very odd but very refreshing design and pops out more than eating the same old wafer cookies that are shaped as rectangles. The Puku Puku Tai Fish Strawberry Wafer is very texturally interesting as the wafer itself is very light and crispy and filled with an airy delicious strawberry cream. The entire wafer and cream combination melts in your mouth in the matter of seconds. The outer layer of wafer itself has a thin layer of strawberry flavoring which makes the entire cookie very sweet and delicious. Mere words cannot describe its textural complexity and sweet flavor, it is something that must be consumed in order to fully capture the true essence of the Puku Puku Tai Fish Strawberry Wafer.

4. YBC Picola

Ah yes, who can go wrong with the classic egg roll design of Malaysia’s popular wafer cookie Semprong or Love Letters. YBC’s Picola takes much influence from these classic treats, but innovates it in such a way that makes their cookie unique and like no other around the world. It has a very, thin, crispy, sweet, and buttery wafer shell that has a very nice bite to it. It also has several flavor swirls looping around the outer shell that gives is a very nice break when bitten into. Within the hollow center of the Picola lies the flavored cream which fuses the whole thing together in a huge variety of sweet flavors like chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, mocha, matcha, etc. The hidden tech with the Picola is to use it as a straw for cold milk or milkshakes. It allows the Picola to absorb all those flavors in the middle along with the cream flavor for an epic flavor explosion when you eat it after drinking the milk or milkshake.

3. Kabaya Saku Saku Panda Cookie

Out of all the shapes and designs of cookies, the cutest would by far be Kabaya’s Saku Saku Panda Cookies. It’s shaped as little panda faces making a variety of extremely cute expressions. It makes you feel guilty eating these cookies, especially the one making a really sad face. But these cookies aren’t all show, if you can get over the guilt of eating the panda faces you are in for an extremely sweet surprise in the form of a buttery vanilla biscuit topped with smooth and creamy milk chocolate and then glazed over with white chocolate. It’s a 3 layer critical combo of sweet deliciousness all under the façade of an extremely cute panda face. If milk chocolate and white chocolate don’t tickle your fancy, Kabaya has you covered with a apple custard and matcha variant.

2. Japanese Exclusive Flavor Kit Kats

Kit Kats, so simple, yet, so recognizable and complex. Many people know the classic chocolate-covered wafer confection, but what many people don’t know is the variety of Japanese exclusive Kit Kat flavors. Sure chocolate Kit Kats are always great snacks, but what if you’re craving the sweet flavor of strawberry cheesecake, or have a hankering for some royal milk tea? In Japan you can just buy these flavors of Kit Kats amongst many other strange flavors. Have a bad cough but don’t like having to suck on cough drops? Why not just chow down on a cough drop flavored Kit Kat? Or what about those times at dinner where you wanted some corn with your meal? In Japan you can just walk down to the candy store and take a bite out of a delicious corn flavored Kit Kat. There are so many different flavors of Japanese Kit Kats to pick and choose from, you’ll never have to search for new flavors of cookies or candy again.

1. Glico Pretz/Pocky

The most iconic and recognizable Japanese cookie snack, Glico’s Pretz and Pocky have no equal. Pretz and Pocky has expanded its reaches around the world to the point where they are in most convenience stores, and for very good reason. The signature slim crunchy delicious cookie stick design is ingenious and is unrivaled in terms of convenience. It’s is so simple yet so great. Pocky is dipped with sweet cream flavors while Pretz stays pure and undipped. Each flavor is unique and very different from any other snack, even those with the same kind of flavors. Strawberry cream on one snack will not be the same as the strawberry cream that is on Pocky. There is a flavor for everyone out there, and Pretz and Pocky stands as the one cookie to rule them all.

There are a lot of cookies to choose from as you can see, each with their own unique flavors and tastes. The quality and flavor of Japanese cookies overall is superior and of those cookies, Pretz and Pocky is unrivaled in convenience, variety, and flavor. But don’t take my word for it, go grab a pack of any of these cookies and enjoy yourself, you won’t regret it. For similar products to try check out our Top 10 Japanese Biscuit Snacks post.