Calbee Miino Sora Mame Fava Beans Snack Salt

Miino is Calbee’s whole-bean snack line — a concept built around a single question: what happens if you take an entire bean, fry it as it is, and season it with only salt?

The answer, for fava beans, is a snack with three ingredients on the label, a texture that is unlike anything else in the Japanese snack aisle, and a flavor that is entirely determined by the bean rather than its seasoning.

Fava beans — soramame in Japanese — are one of the oldest cultivated legumes in the world, and one of the more specific flavors in the bean family: earthy, slightly bitter at the skin, with a dense, starchy sweetness at the center that is more complex than most other beans.

Calbee’s approach is to deep-fry each bean whole using the company’s proprietary method, which produces the texture they describe as “saku-hokku” — an immediate crispness at the surface that gives way to a warmer, starchier quality in the interior.

The skin fries separately from the flesh, creating a structural contrast within each piece rather than a uniform crunch throughout.

Salt is applied after frying, and only salt: 0.2–0.3g of sodium equivalent per 28g bag, which is notably restrained for a snack.

The effect is to highlight the fava bean’s natural flavor rather than compete with it.

The skin’s slight bitterness, the center’s earthiness, the faint nuttiness that develops during frying — all of it remains legible rather than being covered by seasoning.

Allergen-free across all 28 major categories. Suitable for low-carbohydrate (locabo) lifestyles, with 4.4–11.1g of net carbohydrates per bag. Recommended for ages six and above, as some beans may be firm.

About this item
Item Name : Miino Sora Mame Salt
Brand : Calbee
Item Form : Bean Snacks
Number of Items : 28g (Pack of 1)