Matcha is actually a type of ryokucha. Ryokucha is green tea and there are many different types of it such as matcha. Matcha is just the leaves of the ryokucha that are powdered after a certain process. In fact matcha is usually common only in green tea ceremonies. However, there are many flavored green tea stuff like green tea ice cream, green tea kit kats and so on. Here is a break down of different types of green tea in Japan:

Ryokucha types(Green tea): Regular green tea from the tea plant.

Matcha: Uses tea leaves that have been shaded from sunlight, dried and then powdered down. 

Sencha: The most common form of ryokucha where only the leave are harvested from the tea plant. The leaves are in the shape of a needle.

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Melon Pan is a type of Japanese sweet bread. Pan means bread in Japanese, so basically a melon bread. But, the bread itself does not taste like a melon it only resembles a shape like a melon. The bread is nice and soft on the inside and crispy like a cookie on the outside. Typically it comes in different flavors such as chocolate chip, strawberry and green tea (oddly enough not melon) and lately there have even been cream and ice cream filled melon pan! They are sold at any convenient stores and grocery stores, but of course the best ones come from melon pan specialty bakeries.

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Melon Soda is a popular drink in Japan - particularly loved by every Japanese kid. It has a neon green color to suggest it’s melon flavoring but it might not exactly taste like the fruit! Instead it’s a bit milder, creamier and more processed making for a unique, delicious soda. It’s quite popular to have Melon Soda with ice cream in it, making it a cream soda float. You can get melon sodas at most convenience stores and many restaurants.

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Nabe is a variety of different hot pot dishes typically enjoyed during the colder seasons. Most nabes are stews and soups where one giant pot sits in the middle of the table and cooks whatever you wish to have cooked inside the pot. Diners can pick whatever they want out of the pot. Usually the hot pot is accompanied by some sort of dipping sauce or broth to go along with the inside ingredients. There are many different types of nabe depending on the flavoring of the broth. It can range from very light flavored broths such as kombu stock or heavy stocks such as miso and soy sauce. Nabe is not to be confused with shabu shabu. Although very similar, the preparation between the two is different - Nabe is when all the ingredients are cooked in the pot at once while shabu shabu is cooked one by one.

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Ningyoyaki, or literally baked dolls are a famous sweet snack from Asakusa in Tokyo. They are basically small cakes filled with red beans in different shapes. There are many shops that sell Ningyoyaki at the Nakamise Shopping Street that lead up to the famous Sensoji Temple. They were invented in the late 1800s and originally were in the shapes of Shichifukujin or the Seven Lucky Gods. So, you can imagine if there was instagram back then, it would have been a big hit on social media! Now, they are in many different shapes such as temples, pagodas and even characters like Hello Kitty.

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Okonomiyaki is a pan fried, savory pancake with a variety of different toppings. It has a wide range of what can be inside of it, as the name suggests - okonomi means whatever you like and yaki means fried. The dish is widely available all over Japan, but it’s particularly famous in Hiroshima and Osaka. Usually it’s made from regular pancake batter, cabbage, green onions and meats such as pork and seafood. Almost anything goes with okonomiyaki. To best describe the dish, it’s kind of a hybrid between a pancake and pizza with your favorite toppings. To eat okonomiyaki, people go to okonomiyaki specialty stores where every table has its own iron griddle where you can cook the pancake yourself (sometimes the staff will cook for you or even be brought to you already made).

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Onigiri is a widely popular Japanese lunch dish - particularly popular at picnics. In English it can be known as a rice ball and is usually white rice, balled up into a triangular shaped ball, wrapped in seaweed and filled with some kind of ingredient such as Japanese sour plum, salmon, kombu, fish roe and so on. Onigiri actually dates back over thousands of years and was even said to be carried by Samurai in a bamboo sheath during a war to have a quick and easily portable lunch. Today it’s very common to be bought from a convenience store such as 7-Elevens, Lawsons or Family Marts. They are also served at izakayas, homemade and of course onigiri specialty stores (usually not sit down).

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One of the most well known dishes in Japan, ramen is a soup noodle that actually originated in China. It's cheap, delicious and can be found literally everywhere in Japan making it a popular choice among budget travelers in Japan. There are many different types of ramen and regional differences but here are the basic types of ramen in Japan: 

Shoyu Ramen (soy sauce): A soy sauce base made from soy sauce, chicken broth and other meats such as pork or fish depending on the place. One of the most common ramens, and is usually the type of ramen that is served when the menu does not specify the type of ramen. 

Shio (salt): Base made from lightly seasoning salt in chicken or pork broth, usually both. 

Miso: Base made from soybean paste with pork broth (miso) making a thick, creamier soup base. It originated in Hokkaido. 

Tonkotsu (pork bone): Broth is made out of pork bones which have been boiled so much until the point that it’s a white broth. 

Tsukemen: Tsukemen is a different kind of ramen - basically it’s own category. The soup base and the noodles are separate. The soup base is in a different bowl and is usually thicker in concentration compared to regular ramen. The noodles are dipped into the soup and eaten.

Ramune is a beloved Japanese carbonated soft drink. There are many theories on how it originated but, ramune was invented in Japan some time during the late 1800s by some foreign influence. The name is actually a Japanese loan word from the American word lemonade. Ramune is basically regular soda (like Sprite), but it’s distinguishing feature is it’s codd-neck bottle with a marble ball as it’s cap. Nowadays, there are many different flavors such as melon, strawberry, grape and so on, but the most common and popular flavor to this day is the regular ramune flavor which has a slight lemon/lime candy flavoring to it.

 To open it, the bottle comes with a small plastic plunger topper connected to the top of the bottle. You remove it from the bottle and use it to push the marble down into the drink. It’s famously sold at festivals but you can find it at drinking establishments and grocery stores as well.

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This popular Japanese alcoholic drink is made from fermented rice. In Japan, it’s commonly known as Nihonshu, as sake can sometimes refer to as alcohol in general. This drink is enjoyed at many restaurants and drinking establishments and is one of Japan’s most widely known alcoholic drinks internationally. The quality of sake is based on the quality of the rice, water, mold, yeast and it’s production process. Depending on how it’s made the alcoholic content can range anywhere from 15-20%. Niigata is known to have some of the best rice in Japan, thus making it well known for sake as well.

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