Marukawa Grape Bubble Gum

Eight pieces for the price of a dagashi item is the whole proposition here.

Marukawa’s Marble Gum packs hold six and come with an atari lottery ticket; these hold eight and come with none.

The trade is straightforward — more gum, no gamble — and in a dagashi shop, where children work out what their coins are worth with some precision, that is a real decision rather than a trivial one.

Grape is the flavour, and the reference point is Kyoho, the large dark table grape bred in Japan in the 1930s that the national palate is calibrated to.

It is what Japanese people mean when they say grape, and it tastes less like fresh fruit than like the grape of childhood — deep, sweet, unmistakably purple.

In a gum that flavour has to land immediately, which it does, and the chew continues long after it has faded.

Marukawa has made chewing gum in Nagoya since 1954 and supplies most of what sits on a Japanese dagashi shelf.

Unlike the company’s orange gums, this one carries no allergen declaration. Eight pieces to a pack.

Eight pieces to a pack.

About this item
Item Name : Grape Bubble Gum
Brand : Marukawa
Item Form : Gum
Number of Items : 8 Counts (Box of 1)