Meiji Kinoko no Yama, or “Mountain of Mushrooms”

Mountain of Mushrooms: Mushroom-shaped snacks with a smooth chocolate cap.

The Snack

Introduced by Meiji in 1975, Kinoko no Yama (Mountain of Mushrooms) was the result of five years of development aimed at getting one thing exactly right: the balance between chocolate and biscuit.

Positioned at the time as a “fancy chocolate snack,” the concept was simple but deliberate. Each piece is shaped like a tiny mushroom, with a crisp, lightly sweet biscuit stem topped by a molded cap made from a blend of milk and dark chocolate. The appeal isn’t just flavor, it’s contrast. A clean snap followed by a smooth, substantial finish, engineered into something small enough to eat by the handful without feeling careless.

The mushrooms proved popular enough to inspire a sister product, Takenoko no Sato, Village of Bamboo Shoots, and with it a long-running, good-natured rivalry among fans. Mushroom people versus bamboo people. Structure versus structure. Texture loyalty as a lifestyle choice.

Over the decades, the snack expanded beyond Japan into markets across Asia and the United States, where it’s sold under the name Chocorooms. The format hasn’t changed. Small, precise, quietly thoughtful—built around the idea that even a casual candy can be designed with intent.

A gift box of crispy, crunchy, chocolatey, cutie mushrooms.

The Review

The box arrives bright and pastoral, a tiny cartoon countryside promising what the Japanese text calls “a breath of fresh air.” It opens not like a standard candy carton but like a small presentation case, lifting upward to reveal a sealed inner bag. It feels less like opening candy and more like opening something you’re meant to portion out thoughtfully, though this intention does not survive contact with the first handful.

The mushrooms themselves are almost architectural. The biscuit stem is crisp and light, dry in the best way, with just enough sweetness to register without competing. It snaps cleanly. No crumble, no dust cloud. A disciplined base.

The chocolate cap is where the weight lives. It’s denser than expected, closer to a molded European-style bite than a soft, melty Hershey square. Not fully dark, but deeper than standard milk chocolate, with a rounded cocoa flavor that reads as deliberate rather than sugary. The contrast works exactly as designed: airy stem, substantial cap, one clean bite.

And then there’s the shape. They are, unavoidably, charming. Small enough to eat by the handful. Distinct enough that you briefly consider arranging them. This thought passes.

What begins as a neat serving quickly becomes a forest disappearing one mushroom at a time, with no clear moment when you decided that the box was, in fact, for you alone.