Karinto - Tradition of Japanese snack

When I looked up "karinto" on Wikipedia, it simply said: "Japanese sweets." But honestly, calling karinto a wagashi (traditional Japanese sweet) feels a little strange.

For example, when you hear that kakinotane is a Japanese snack, it makes sense. Same with imagawa-yaki. Even rice crackers? Sure—definitely Japanese sweets. But karinto? That deep-fried, sugary, crunchy snack that looks like it belongs in a jar behind a counter in the 1970s? Something about it doesn’t sit right.

And then I remembered something else that made it even weirder: karinto looks completely different depending on where you are in Japan.

In central Japan, it’s short and stick-shaped with a classic brown sugar glaze. In the Tohoku region, like Akita, it can be thin, jagged, and even triangular. In Kansai, it might be twisted into a spiral, almost like a little seashell. It’s as if karinto, like Darwin’s finches, adapted and evolved across regions.

And no one really knows where it came from.

According to Keiko Nakayama’s World Encyclopedia of Wagashi, karinto is “a snack made by mixing flour with syrup, kneading, deep frying, and sweetening with honey.” 

But where did it come from? Some suggest it’s related to Tang confectionery—sweets brought from China over 1,300 years ago. Others compare it to Nanban confectionery, which came from Europe with the Portuguese in the 1500s. But unlike buto (a Tang-era rice dumpling still offered at Kasuga Shrine), or konpeito (a sugar candy linked to the Portuguese), karinto doesn’t have a clearly documented foreign ancestor.

So maybe karinto is a clever improvisation. People swapped expensive rice flour for wheat, added syrup, fried it up, and boom—a humble, crispy treat was born. It spread across the Kinki region in the Edo period, then up into the Kanto and eventually the Tohoku area, picking up new shapes, textures, and even flavors along the way.

So what is karinto, really? It’s crisp. It’s nostalgic. It shatters with a satisfying crunch, leaving behind a gentle sweetness—or a surprising kick, depending on the region. It’s the kind of snack that pairs perfectly with green tea, or even black coffee. It’s not flashy. It’s not trendy. But it’s deeply comforting in its simplicity.

In the end, it’s not just the shape or the flavor I love—it’s that rare bite when the sugar crystal hits just right. That tiny, unexpected happiness? That’s pure karinto.

If you’ve never tried it, you’re in for a small, crunchy surprise. Give it a bite and taste the centuries-old mystery snack that refuses to disappear.