“KOEDA” is a popular chocolate snack shaped like small tree branches from Japanese sweets maker Morinaga.

Sugar coated almond pieces form the outer layer and two different types of puffs inside create the signature crunchy texture that KOEDA fans love.

2021 is a milestone year for KOEDA as it is the 50th anniversary since the treat's debut!

Earlier in May, Morinaga released a special edition of KOEDA, a convenience store exclusive, "KOEDA Ice bar ". When we heard about it, as a KOEDA fans, we had to go get it ourselves.

As mentioned earlier, KOEDA is a small tree branch shaped chocolate snack. But when it’s in the form ice-bar, it becomes a pretty sturdy branch!

This is not really a small branch as the name goes (Ko-small, eda-branch), but rather a medium sized branch, at least?

There are crunchy almond bits in both the ice cream and the outer layer of chocolate coating. The double crunch creates quite a texture that you can definitely enjoy.

When we took a bite, the crunchy chocolate coating melted really nicely with the vanilla ice inside. KOEDA’s signature crunchy texture was almost doubled with this ice bar, too!

To capture the size of the ice cream bar and make a report on it, we tried taking several photos from different angles, but in doing so, felt that something wasn't quite the same...

Then, we realized that it was the label on the package!

How sneaky! They printed “KOWAZA" ("small skill" or "small trick") in Japanese, with just a small difference in the latter portion of kanji (小枝→小技)

At first, we thought it was a printing error by Morinaga, but apparently this was an intentional playful trick as seen in the back of the package!

We took another visit to the store to see if we could find another KOWAZA. What did we know, there were actually quite a few of them! We didn't even notice this at all when I bought them initially. This kind of shows how unreliable our first glances can be!

In addition, this little trick by Morinaga has been hot topic on social media, and people are actually finding more KOWAZA than regular KOEDA labeled ice packages! Some are even playing a game of “Find KOEDA”.

This new Morinaga’s item “KOEDA ice bar

If you were a KOEDA fan, definitely check it out at convenience stores, and even try finding KOWAZA, too, just for fun!

There are many other interesting and tasty ice cream treats at convenience stores. You might find an interesting gem like this if you regularly check out stores!