March 2015 Universal Yums International Snack Subscription Box Review

Universal Yums is an international snack subscription! Every month you’ll take a trip to a new country and munch on brand new snacks. Yum Yum! There are two sizes of box, the Yum ($13) and the Yum Yum ($25). This is the Yum Yum box.

For March we went to China.

I love the tissue paper set up to look like the country of the month’s flag. They went for a representative look this month (we had wondered how they were going to pull off the stars!).

The information card has descriptions of all the snacks, plus they have translated ingredients on their site. There’s also a clue to next month’s box – which is Scandinavia!

 Everything in the March box.  The box was packed pretty full and had multiples of the smaller items so you could share.

Huang Fe Hong Spicy Peanuts:  The giant slivers of hot pepper and whole Sichuan peppercorns make this a cool-looking and fun novelty snack, but the whole Sichuan peppercorns are a bit too mouth-numbing to make this a toss-in-your-mouth kind of snack.  The peanuts themselves are pretty harmless.

Chuang Ja Square Cookies:  These “vegetable cookies” have some aromatics like onion in their flavor profile, but they are actually fairly sweet and are a quite decent flaky cookie.  They are probably my favorite item and perhaps the most surprising.

Sugar Glazed Rice Crackers:  Very crispy and light textured.  The sugar glaze is similar to what is drizzled on Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal.  Tasty and light.

Golden Time Flute Wafers:  These came in a pretty large box and were lighter in texture, if I recall correctly, than what you would get from Pepperidge Farms or similar in the U.S.  The box notes remark how the Chinese are not particularly fond of chocolate, as judged by amount consumed, but these were quite good.

Cha Cha Potato Crispy:  The wasabi on these is pretty intense. Like holy crap intense. It is a serious wasabi flavor.

Butterfly Cookies:  This take on a Palmier is not quite as tender as their French-born cousins, but a decent version of the popular pastry/cookie.

Hot & Spicy Rice Crackers:  Not at all hot and spicy, so the name is a mystery.  Very light and crispy.

Amay’s Almond Cookies:  Made in the USA, these are popular in China and imported in large quantities.  Not too sweet, they make a better after-dinner nibble than a fortune cookie.

Black Sesame Square Cookies:  These sesame crackers are savory with a nice light texture.

Edo Pack Blueberry Pie:  These are quite odd.  they must be steamed, given the gummy texture of the dough.  The jelly filling is thick and gummy too.  Interesting view into the flavor and texture cravings of another culture, but not something you’d go out of your way for.

Crispy Candy:  These come in sesame, almond, peanut, and mixed nut meat.  They are all delightfully flaky and much more resemble a proper pie crust than does the “blueberry pie.”  These are a real treat and one of my favorites!

Lucky Candy:  Hard strawberry candy with a chewy center.

White Rabbit:  Kind of like a very hard vanilla Tootsie Roll — they have an edible paper wrapper within the outer wax-paper wrapper.  Very tough to begin with, but softens after several chews.

Hard Candies:  Tangerine, Pineapple, and Peach Milk Ball.

The March box  came full to the top of the box and had a great variety of items.  I think for $25 a month it’s an excellent value (I didn’t do a breakdown though) and we had a great time tasting all the unique snacks! I hadn’t tried most of these and as usual, Universal Yums is sending some really unique items that are hard to find or impossible to find here. My whole family loves this box (though we had to shoo the kids away from the spicy items this month!).

Visit Universal Yums to subscribe or find out more. You can see all my Universal Yums Reviews or check out all the international food subscriptions in the directory!