Milbenkäse is a unique type of goat cheese ripened in wooden boxes infested with millions of tiny cheese mites and consumed with the tiny critters for added taste.

The history of Milbenkäse can be traced back to the Middle Ages when it was produced in Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia regions of Germany, but the cheese-making tradition faded with time, and in 1970 the recipe for Milbenkäse was nearly lost forever. An elderly woman in the village of  Würchwitz remained the only person in the world who knew how to make this special cheese, and she passed on her knowledge to local science teacher Helmut Pöschel. He in turn partnered with Christian Schmelzer and together they managed to revitalize the production of the so-called “spider cheese”. Today, Würchwitz is the only place in the world where Milbenkäse is still produced.

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Blonde chocolate has yet to reach the popularity of milk, dark, and white chocolate, but it is already recognized as one of the most ingenious variations of white chocolate ever created.

The history of blonde chocolate can be traced back to the year 2004 when French pastry chef Frederic Bau was busy showing off his skills during an exhibition in Japan. He apparently got so carried away during the show that he left his white chocolate melting in a bain-marie for four days. When he finally got back to it, the chocolate had become a pale brown and had a very distinct smell and flavor. Apart from its caramel-like color, this new confection had the milky smoothness of white chocolate, but also butterscotch, toffee, and shortbread-tasting notes, as well as a distinct aftertaste of roasted coffee. Frederic Bau quickly recognized the potential of his discovery, and blonde chocolate was born.

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Japanese matsutake mushrooms are the most expensive mushrooms in the world. Fetching up to $500 per pound, they rival truffles and are considered one of the most valuable ingredients of Japanese cuisine.

Matsutake, or mattake mushrooms grow on the Korean Peninsula, in China, and even in the United States, but only the ones harvested in Japan, especially around the Kyoto area, fetch truly mindblowing prizes. While imported Matsutake can cost around $50 per pound or less, Japanese mushrooms can cost up to ten times as much. To help Japanese buyers discern between imported and home-grown matsutake, Japan has a law that requires imported mushrooms to be washed of dirt before commercialization, while the domestic variety has a rough, grubby appearance. Japanese matsutake are prized for their strong aroma, meaty texture, and earty taste.

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Made with rare Nacional cacao harvested from just 14 farms in Ecuador’s Piedra de Plata valley, To’ak chocolate is undoubtedly the world’s most valuable chocolate.

From truffle-infused ice cream to gold-plated sandwiches, the world is full of expensive sweets and treats. But while most of them are gimmicky creations designed to attract attention, a few do more than simply add outrageously expensive ingredients that hardly affect the experience of eating them. Ecuadorian chocolate brand To’ak claims that its products are among these few, although judging whether the price of its most expensive offerings is actually justified is ultimately up to the consumer. To’ak is most often referred to as ‘the most expensive chocolate in the world’, which is technically true, as its small chocolate bars can sell for up to $490 per 50-gram bar, but the company believes that simply referring to its product simply as expensive doesn’t really tell the whole story of To’ak.

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Australian fresh produce company Costa Group recently set a new Guinness Record for the world’s heaviest blueberry, with a 20.4-gram fruit roughly the size of a golf ball.

Picked on November 13, 2023, at Costa’s berry farm in Corindi, New South Wales, the record-breaking blueberry was from the Eterna variety, which is known for yielding consistently large fruit without compromising on flavor. Interestingly, one of the growers in charge of this particular farm said that this blueberry was one of at least 20 fruits of similar size spotted during harvesting. After measuring and weighing, it was discovered that the fruit beat the former heaviest blueberry by over 4 grams. The previous world record was for a 16.20g blueberryberry grown in Western Australia in 2020.

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Scientists at South Korea’s Yonsei University have created a new type of hybrid rice that not only has a meaty pink color but is also packed with beef protein and fat cells.

Rice is already one of the most nutritious foods available in nature, but thanks to some scientific ‘magic’, it could soon become a viable, sustainable alternative to meat. A team of researchers at the Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea, managed to create a rice hybrid laced with beef protein and fat cells. The new pink rice has 8 percent more protein and 7 percent more fat than regular rice, and while it doesn’t yet taste like beef, it does carry a “unique blend of aromas, including a slight nuttiness and umami which are characteristic of meat”. Thanks to the integrated animal cells, this new pink rice could one day become a complete meal by itself, ensuring a sufficient, sustainable food supply for the whole world.

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A coffee shop in Ganzhou, China’s Jianxi Province, has found success with a bizarre but innovative drink that combines the traditional ice latte with dried chilies and chili powder.

Jingshi Coffee launched its now-famous ‘hot ice latte’ back in December, as a tribute to Jianxi Province’s famously fiery cuisine, but the drink proved a big hit and the café is now selling it at a rate of 300 cups per day. Viral videos doing the rounds on Douyin (China’s version of TikTok), show café pouring the lattes in plastic cups before infusing them with dried chili and topping off the drink with chili powder. Those brave enough to have tried it claim that the drink is a bit more spicy than regular lattes, but definitely not unpleasant.

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(THISIS)SHIZEN is a Kyoto-based café that has gained popularity mainly thanks to its artistic ice cream cones which resemble intricate flower bouquets.

We use the phrase ‘too beautiful to eat’ to describe food art pretty often here on Oddity Central, but the edible ice-cream bouquets created by (THISIS)SHIZEN really look too pretty to eat, regardless of how tasty they are. Featuring a botanical-themed decor containing potted plants and nature-inspired paintings, this relatively new Japanese café serves a variety of ice-cream bouquets that are only available for a limited time, depending on the season. You can treat yourself to creamy roses, lilac, Japanese camellia, and many more flavorful wonders.

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Tokyo restaurant Sushiya no Nohachi reportedly serves great sushi, but it is most famous for its gimmick – making the world’s smallest sushi with a single grain of rice.

Located in Asakusa, a slightly quieter part of Tokyo, Sushiya no Nohachi is the place to go if you want to enjoy the tiniest, most adorable sushi in the world. Each piece is made with only a grain of rice and a tiny slice of topping wrapped in the thinnest piece of nori. Every served piece is actually perfect, which hints at the amount of work and patience that goes into making them. They are the work of Hironori Ikeno, the chef of Sushiya no Nohachi, who came up with the idea in 2002 when a client asked him how small he could make his sushi. He answered, “as small as a grain of rice”, and proceeded to demonstrate that he wasn’t kidding. Over the years, the eatery became internationally famous for making the world’s smallest sushi.

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Biohazard Coffee is recognized as the strongest coffee in the world. It has a caffeine content of 928mg per 12-ounce cup, which is more than double the daily recommended dose of caffeine and a lot more than most energy drinks.

The title of ‘world’s strongest coffee’ has been attributed to various brands over the last decade. In 2013, we wrote about Death Wish, a blend that promised 200% the caffeine content of the average dark roast, and then there was Black Insomnia Coffee, a brand that boasted a caffeine content of 702 mg per 12-ounce cup. But now we have another title holder, and this one is going to be tough to beat. Launched in 2016, Biohazard Coffee has established itself as the strongest coffee money can buy, with a caffeine content that makes it barely safe to consume.

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A retiring Dutch cook who wanted to say goodbye to her colleagues in a special way cooked a cannabis-infused space cake for them as a surprise. It didn’t go well…

The retiring cook, known only as Mariska, had worked in a Zeeland hotel alongside her colleagues for a long time and wanted to part ways with them in a memorable way. They had discussed the cannabis-infused space cake many times in the past but had never gotten around to actually making it together, so she decided to make one for them, as a parting gift. On February 8th, on her last day on the job, she greeted her colleagues and left the workplace, but not before leaving behind a surprise cake for her colleagues along with a note advising them to only eat it after working hours. Unfortunately, some of them just couldn’t wait.

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Green Ant Gin is a unique gin made by an Adelaide distillery that is infused with green ants for an extra bit of citrus flavor and a hint of coriander.

Green ants have been a source of protein for Australia’s aborigines for thousands of years, and even though bugs are yet to catch on as food in the modern world, these little critters’s neon abdomens can still be used as a flavorful ingredient. Adelaide-based food company Something Wild came up with the idea of using the ants for their natural citrus flavor in a spirit that has won multiple awards since its launch in 2017. Created in collaboration with the Adelaide Hills Distillery, Green Ant Gin is made with Boobiala (a native species of juniper) as well as other botanicals like finger lime, strawberry gum, lemon myrtle, and pepper berry, but its secret ingredient is green ants, as evidenced by the handful of ants floating in every bottle.

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A Japanese candy company has been making national news headlines for its idea to produce gummy candy that tastes like an ‘imaginary fruit’ called Kiraspika (キラスピカ).

Last year was a great one for gummy candy producers, and the market continued to expand throughout 2023, with fruit-flavored gummies being the most popular. While there are plenty of fruit flavors to choose from, including intriguing fruit combinations, companies are still limited to the fruits available in our world. But what if someone broke down barriers and started making candy that tastes like imaginary fruits? That was the genius idea that Japanese sweets maker Kanro recently came up with. Last month, the company launched a new type of gummy candy that tastes like ‘Kiraspika no Mi’, a made-up fruit with an original flavor, design, and even an origin story.

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A popular restaurant in Tokyo, Japan, sparked controversy for claiming to dip its delicious pork skewers in a sauce jar that has not been cleaned in over half a century.

Abe-chan, a famous pork skewer eatery in Tokyo’s Azabu Juban shopping district, was recently featured on a popular Japanese television show where it was revealed that one of the secrets to its success was a rather dubious-looking jar covered in a gelatinous mass. Apparently, this was the same sauce jar that pork skewers have been dipped in for the last sixty years, and the dark brown mass around the jar is the sauce that spilled over and hardened over the decades. According to the third-generation owner of Abe-chan, the jar has never been cleaned in the last six decades, which apparently contributes to the rich taste of the sauce.

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A Japanese producer of milk and dairy products came up with an ingenious way of motivating kids to finish their milk bottles at lunch – decorating the bottles with manga comics.

Seki Milk, a milk producer and processor in Japan’s Gifu Prefecture, has been providing its products to local schools, but in recent years the company had seen consumption of milk drop significantly. According to its own research, the majority of school students (around 65% of them) were not finishing their milk bottles at lunch, which caused unnecessary food waste and also deprived them of calcium and other valuable nutrients. However, if you’re a parent, you probably already know that getting kids to eat things that are good for them isn’t the easiest thing in the world. Luckily, Seki Milk came up with an original and fun way to motivate children to finish their milk – manga bottles.

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