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Move over, Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino.

For a limited time this summer, Starbucks Coffee Japan will debut 47 new Frappuccino drinks, one for each prefecture, made with local ingredients such as "Hyuganatsu" citrus and "Kakinotane" rice confectionery.

The Seattle-based coffee chain unveiled its lineup of photogenic frozen drinks, each sold in its corresponding prefecture, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its first foray into Japan.

Starbucks baristas across the country came up with ideas for the ingredients, presentation and naming of each prefecture's drink.

By using local products in Starbucks' signature beverage, the company said it hopes to strengthen its ties with local communities.

The special lineup is called "47 Jimoto (hometown) Frappuccino" and will be available from June 30 to Aug. 3, in a tall size only, priced at 682 yen ($6) including tax, or 669 yen to go.

The Frappuccino for southern Miyazaki Prefecture uses mango sauce and Hyuganatsu citrus, while baristas in central Yamanashi Prefecture dreamed up a drink featuring grapes, which are a local specialty, and white chocolate cream.

Baristas in Tottori Prefecture went for photographic perfection, creating a creamy caramel drink that looks like the prefecture's famous sand dunes.

In Tochigi Prefecture, baristas chose to have fun with a natural phenomenon. The prefecture is prone to lightning strikes, so they came up with the idea of replicating the sound and image of lightning by infusing popping candy into a chocolate Frappuccino.

For a more adventurous taste, baristas in Miyagi Prefecture decided to blend "zunda-an" (sweet edamame bean paste) and matcha green tea.

Niigata Prefecture's special drink features a beloved snack, Kakinotane, in a chocolate-based Frappuccino.

In Aichi Prefecture, baristas were inspired by a locally popular dish: thick toast topped with azuki bean paste.

The first Starbucks store in the country was opened in Tokyo's posh Ginza district in 1996.

By 2015, all 47 prefectures had at least one Starbucks. Currently, about 1,600 Starbucks are operating in Japan.

The company is expected to open 100 new stores every year, aiming for a total of 2,000 Starbucks in 2024.

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Starbucks to sell special local Frappuccinos in each prefecture | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis

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Move over, Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino. For a limited time this summer, Starbucks Coffee Japan will debut 47 new Frappuccino drinks, one for each prefecture, made with local ingredients such as "Hyuganatsu" citrus and "Kakinotane" rice confectionery. The Seattle-based coffee chain unveiled its lineup of photogenic frozen drinks, each sold in its corresponding prefecture, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its first foray into Japan.

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TOKUSHIMA--Eggplants have reminded picture book writer Takeshi Harada of his “demon-like” but loving mother who taught him valuable life lessons before her death when he was in his early teens.

His mother’s influence has also led in part to a low-carb specialty developed by Harada, a Tokushima resident, that allows him to “reduce my weight while eating whatever I like.”

In spring 2020, Harada, now 49, found that he had put on 10 kilograms while remaining mostly indoors during the novel coronavirus crisis.

He dieted but still craved his favorite food: curry.

Finely cut cauliflower, broccoli and other vegetables have been used as substitutes for rice among the increasing number of health-conscious consumers in Japan.

Harada tried curry with cauliflower every day, but he found the rice replacement “tastes dry and boasts too peculiar an aroma to please my mouth.”

Harada tested various other veggies and found that eggplants were particularly tasty.

The experience took him back to his childhood days in Awa, Tokushima Prefecture.

His parents were eggplant farmers, and his mother was gentle and always smiling.

But one day, when Harada was around 10 years old, she suddenly ordered him to sell damaged eggplants at a housing complex.

The vegetables could not be put on the market. The sales job was the first for Harada.

He pushed intercom buttons at doors to speak with residents, but he sold zero eggplants on the first two days.

Instead of comforting the elementary school pupil, the mother scolded him, saying, “You must sell them tomorrow.”

On the third day, Harada summoned up the courage to bellow out his pitch: “Would you like delicious eggplants? Their shapes are bad but they are tasty. They are priced as cheap as 100 yen (78 cents).”

Many customers, including one who initially yelled at the young salesman to scare him away, admired Harada for his persistence and bought his offerings.

The experience made him aware of the difficulties in earning money while sparking his interest in working.

Harada was 14 when his mother died at age 53.

After her death, his father told Harada that his mother had shed tears in a car when her son was selling eggplants.

Harada’s mother had leukemia, and she knew she did not have much time left to teach Harada the “way to live.”

He said his mother’s strict but affectionate lesson enabled him to overcome all kinds of difficulty in work.

EGGPLANT TESTS

In 2014, Harada released a picture book about a “demon-like mother demanding her son of elementary school age sell eggplants.”

“I now live a life following the story as a writer,” Harada said. “I want my mother to check out the eggplant-based rice substitute. She loved novel things, so she would rejoice by calling it ‘unimaginable’ and ‘astonishing.’”

Harada fried, boiled and steamed eggplants for curry. He also test-sliced eggplants to different sizes.

After two years of tinkering at home, he completed the prototype of “eggplant rice” in January this year.

The costs for developing the recipe were covered mainly by his illustrated publication sales.

Harada even commissioned a research company to analyze the components of his project.

The findings showed that using tiny steamed pieces of cut eggplants instead of rice slashed carbs by 94 percent and calories by 91 percent.

Eggplant rice is also rich in polyphenol, which is believed to have antioxidative effects.

The eggplant rice helped Harada drop 11.5 kg over two years.

The white surface of the eggplant’s flesh reminded him of the uniform of the nurse who helped him lose weight.

The Japanese word for eggplant is “nasu,” which is pronounced in a similar way to “nurse.” So he registered eggplant rice as a trademark under the name “nasu in white.”

To reduce food waste, he used dried eggplant peels to create a tea with a refreshing flavor and an eggplant aroma.

Its color can change depending on how it is brewed. The beverage features a larger amount of polyphenol than wine, Harada said.

“I came up with the drink idea simply to reduce food loss,” he said. “But it may prove to be our flagship product.”

A 200-gram package of eggplant rice costs 777 yen, including tax. A set of eight 2-gram packs of eggplant tea is available for 888 yen after tax.

They were put on sale on March 26 at a specialized Japanese website at (https://nasurice.com/).

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Writer makes eggplant curry, with ‘demon-like’ mother in mind | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis

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TOKUSHIMA--Eggplants have reminded picture book writer Takeshi Harada of his “demon-like” but loving mother who taught him valuable life lessons before her death when he was in his early teens.

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OSAKA--Local landmarks for a century here, two popular fugu restaurants are the latest casualties of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Zuboraya restaurants--famed for their huge 3-D puffer fish signs hanging in front--are suspending operations after closing during the outbreak and never reopening.

"Sales had been declining drastically from March so I decided to close them down," said Takaharu Matsuda, chairman of the operating company. "I am really sorry for our customers and employees."

Zuboraya opened in 1920 and has been providing fugu dishes at reasonable prices for generations of local residents and visitors.

The restaurants are located in the popular Shinsekai and Dotonbori entertainment and shopping districts in the city.

The restaurant in the Shinsekai district was first established near the area where laborers gathered. The word "zuboraya" means a sloppy restaurant. It was named in this way to encourage customers in carefree outfits to eat sloppily to their contentment.

The restaurants had stopped operating since April 8 to help curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Matsuda said that he will continue doing the remaining shutdown work, which will be completed in September. He does not know what will become of the eateries' paper mache puffer fish signs

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Famed Osaka fugu restaurants to call it quits after a century | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis

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OSAKA--Local landmarks for a century here, two popular fugu restaurants are the latest casualties of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Zuboraya restaurants--famed for their huge 3-D puffer fish signs hanging in front--are suspending operations after closing during the outbreak and never reopening.

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KITA-KYUSHU--A metal fragment has been found mixed in a chikuwa fish sausage for a second time in a school lunch here only days after the first incident, the Kita-Kyushu Board of Education reported on May 17.

Even after a school reported the first case on May 11, the board of education said it let schools continue to use chikuwa in their lunch menus, saying, “If the chikuwa were chopped into small pieces, any foreign objects could be found during cooking.”

But a metal fragment was again discovered two days later at another school in the city.

“We couldn’t determine that chikuwa was to blame at that time," a board representative said of the first discovery. "As chikuwa was the main ingredient of the menu, we wanted to serve it as much as possible. We thought we could ensure safety by chopping it into very small pieces. But we very much regret continuing to serve it.”

The board of education said the metal fragments were 2 centimeters in length and 1 millimeter thick. No health problems were reported, and the schools have stopped serving chikuwa from the company it procured it from.

Yamabuki, which manufactured and delivered the sausage, is recalling the product.

On May 11, a student at Numa Junior High School in the city noticed a piece of metal in the fried chikuwa served with tea leaves.

After receiving the report, the board of education ordered schools in other districts in the city that were scheduled to serve the same item to chop it into 1-cm pieces and not to use wheat flour or tea leaves.

However, two days later, a student at Nakao Elementary School in the same city found another metal fragment in chikuwa.

The school lunches served at both schools were under a “kamikami" menu, which is served once a month to encourage students to properly chew their food.

Yamabuki said some parts of the machine used to make chikuwa were missing. The company said it has already begun recalling some products made with the machine.

The board of education received a report from the company on May 15 and has suspended the use of the company’s products in school lunches. The board said it will change the school lunch menus for the time being and will use food products from other companies from June.

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Schools didn't pull chikuwa off menu even after metal found in it | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis

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KITA-KYUSHU--A metal fragment has been found mixed in a chikuwa fish sausage for a second time in a school lunch here only days after the first incident, the Kita-Kyushu Board of Education reported on May 17.

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For 18 months, Motoharu Uchida had forgotten about seaweed he had put in a refrigerator and was disgusted by the sight of what had become “brown creeping crud.”

When he was discarding the rotten gunk in a sink, Uchida noticed a sweet fruity smell, similar to wine.

“This could be used for something,” the fisheries researcher recalled thinking.

From that gut feeling came a new type of soy sauce whose main ingredient is seaweed, not soybeans and wheat.

But it was a long time in the making.

The seaweed have been placed in a fridge in his laboratory in Yokohama about 20 years ago after he used it in experiments.

Uchida’s long-held goal was to find an everyday use for fermented seaweed.

In 2002, Uchida was transferred to the Fisheries Research Agency (FRA) of the National Research Institute of Fisheries and Environment of Inland Sea (FEIS) in Hatsukaichi, Hiroshima Prefecture.

He picked seaweed, a specialty of the Seto Inland Sea, as an ingredient for his study on fermentation.

After a great deal of trial and error to curb the propagation of bacteria, Uchida finally found a method to ferment seaweed with natural micro-organisms, which resulted in “nori shoyu” (seaweed soy sauce).

Uchida tasted the seaweed-based soy sauce he made in his laboratory. Although his shoyu was relatively weak compared with that of the general soy sauce, a distinctive “umami” savory taste lasted for a long time in his mouth.

He named the sauce “Umi no Hishio” (original form of shoyu in the sea).

The FRA turned nori shoyu into a commercial product in 2017 in tandem with soy sauce makers and other entities in Saga Prefecture.

In consideration for those who suffer from food allergies, bottles of nori shoyu carry a label that reads: “soybean free, wheat free.”

“I want to build a brand new food culture with fermenting seaweed, just like ‘gyosho’ fish sauce, which was made through the fermentation of fish,” Uchida said.

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Scent of rotten seaweed inspires scientist to make new soy sauce | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis

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For 18 months, Motoharu Uchida had forgotten about seaweed he had put in a refrigerator and was disgusted by the sight of what had become “brown creeping crud.”

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KESENNUMA, Miyagi Prefecture--A centuries-old shop here is imparting knowledge to customers in an attempt to turn around the decreasing production and demand for "nori" seaweed.

Using calcium, Yokotaya Honten has printed tidbits about fish and shellfish caught in this seaside city on nori sheets.

The product, called Osakana Zukan Nori (Fish picture book nori), has been a hit. Customers say it is a good gift choice for families with children.

Each sheet features an illustration and the ecology of fish and shellfish species, including blue shark, bonito, swordfish, ocean sunfish, oyster and sea squirt.

Although nori is an important ingredient in Japanese food culture, it has been served on fewer occasions at homes while its production has decreased because of global warming.

Yokotaya Honten, founded more than 300 years ago and now headed by Giichi Igari, started selling Osakana Zukan Nori in April to remedy the situation. It received help from the Kesennuma Business Support Center, which provides free consulting to small and medium-sized businesses.

The first batch of 200 sets sold out just in three days.

After the company was flooded with orders, it increased production to supply 1,000 sets to roadside rest areas in Miyagi and Iwate prefectures, shops at Sendai Airport and elsewhere.

Each pack contains 14 sheets of seven varieties and is priced at 389 yen ($3), including tax.

For inquiries, visit the official website at ( https://www.yokotayahonten.com/).

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Shop's fish-trivia 'nori' sheets a popular seller in Tohoku region | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis

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KESENNUMA, Miyagi Prefecture--A centuries-old shop here is imparting knowledge to customers in an attempt to turn around the decreasing production and demand for "nori" seaweed. Using calcium, Yokotaya Honten has printed tidbits about fish and shellfish caught in this seaside city on nori sheets.