Gogo Tea (or gogo no kocha) is one of those Iconic Japanese brands that has been around for ages, in fact, 23 years. It's one of the more well known milk tea brands in Japan, that has a plethora of Japanese talents endorsing it.
Gogo Tea is actually produced by Kirin beverages, but these pies are made by Morinaga, in conjunction with Kirin. I couldn't find any mention of these pies on the Morinaga biscuit website and likewise the Kirin website.
The box has 12 pies, 6 individually wrapped packs of two pies each. Each pie is 2cm wide by 5cm long and resembles more of a flaky biscuit, than a "pie". The top of the pie is covered in a light brown layer of sweet milk tea coating. I say coating because it's smooth and warm, and very different in texture to icing. The texture of the coating leaves a pasty texture on the roof of my mouth, it's hard to get used to.
The pie itself is flaky, has lots of air in the middle when I take a bite, and reminds me of Pie no Mi, but a long flat version. I tend to think of this more as a biscuit than a pie, just because my idea of a pie, is round with something in the middle, and my idea of a biscuit is flat like this "pie".
Instead, Morinaga have, what should be in the middle, on top of the pie, which seems topsy-turvy to me.
The pie pastry has no discernable flavour, it's made with shortening, milk, flour, and rice flour. It's quite unremarkable, I could almost say "cheap". The coating is made with 100% gogo milk tea, salt, cocoa butter, and cocoa powder.
This is a cheap, unflattering tribute to Kirin, a product which falls short of Kirin's consistent quality of products. I think Morinaga have really let themselves and Kirin down with this pie, and I'm really disappointed.
I definitely wouldn't buy this again.
