Snack Nation: Purple Yam Dolce Latte

Kagome is famous for its Yasai Seikatsu 100 vegetable and fruit juices, which contain millions of different plant varieties. Ok, maybe not millions, but lots. The taste is generally pleasant, but even with a bad mix, the health benefits outweigh any flavor idiosyncracies. Kagome's most iconic juices come categorized by color -- red, green, yellow and purple -- just in case your doctor prescribes a chromatic diet rather than a list of actual foods.

Not content with just making healthy beverages that satisfy your daily vitamin intake, Kagome has just launched its "Yasai Shibori" (vegetable-squeeze) line of slightly more gourmet vegetable purees. Purple Yam Dolce Latte (紫いもドルチェラテ) caught our attention as it positions itself as a 'sweet' dessert drink rather than a straight up health supplement. 

Purple yams (murasaki imo), despite being a tuber, are used around the Pacific in many desserts, and in places like Kamakura and Okinawa, it often comes as an ice cream flavor. (Blue Seal even properly calls it 'Ube.')

Unlike those ice cream purveyors, however, Kagome is very serious about the vegetable part of the equation. The resulting flavor of Purple Yam Dolce Latte tastes exactly like the picture on the packaging: someone adding in heavy cream to a bowl of pureed yams and pumpkins. The overall effect is sweet with a gritty vegetable under-layer. At no time during consumption are you in danger of forgetting this must be good for you.

But there's a bigger issue: if you're going to bite the bullet and drink vegetable juice for your health, why would you want to expose yourself to all that cream and sugar? And it's not like yams are the healthiest of vegetables, they're giant bags of starch.

So we're not sure exactly who Purple Yam Dolce Latte would work for, but consumer targeting aside, the concoction's strangeness caught our attention. And that alone means victory in Snack Nation.