Best before dates!

Dear all,

I visited Japan in April of last year and I brought back with me some fantastic Japanese food and drink. I am just wondering if anyone can please give me some advice regarding best before dates.

I dont read Japanese unfortunetly so I am wondering what the best before date on the bottom of a tin of Matcha is. The tin reads 06 12 10 on the bottom. Is this 2006 or 2010?

I am also wondering how long an unopened bottle of Shochu will last for. Seeing as it is a high percentage of alcohol, presumably it will last a long time even when opened?

Many thanks for your time!

Hello IndianaJB!! Welcome to JREF.

Dates in Japanese are often if not always in the YY-MM-DD format. So that would mean that your Matcha is ready to be binned unfortunately..

Shochuu will last long for a long time indeed, especially when kept in a refridgerator. For your information, anything with a percentage above 15% will last pretty long. This is because yeast cells cannot survive in an environment with such an alcohol percentage. Besides, shochuu doesn't contain any fruity additives/ingredients that can go bad. (Creme de Cassis for instance goes bad pretty quickly although it has a 15% alcohol percentage!)

However, it will not stay good forever, like whisky does (40%+ percentage). It is difficult to predict how long opened bottles will stay good actually.. The best is to sniff the beverage from time to time to test whether it still is drinkable. In my case, shochuu doesn't last that long.. I drink it too fast!!

Hi thank you for your quick reply!
Do you think the Matcha is ready for the bin?
I have one small tin of high quality Match still sealed and unopened. The best before is last month so it may be still ok to consume I hope?!?
I had another small tin which i bought in Matsuzakaya in Tokyo, which had been opened and the best before was August 06 so I will throw that out.

The best before date is as leonmarion explained.
As for matcha, if it is just ground greentea, it is still OK as far as the tin was kept with its lid on. Tea does not perish, though it does lose its original (good) flavour as the time passes.

edit: oh, if the tin is unopened, then it should be OK for sure!

Hi all,

Thank you very much for your advice. I will enjoy my "slightly off Matcha" this week!