[Today's Lisa Zate Topic] Is food "fashionable" in the first place?

 There are so many sweets on sale in Japan. Rather than mixing Japanese and Western eclectic, it is very interesting because the development are always repeated, such as incorporating original ideas and further developing from the prototype to make it a unique style. There are countless quantities, types, decorations and prices of simple shortcakes and maccha parfaits that have been popular for many years.

This "tapioca" boom arrived before such trendy sweets went into full swing. An increasing number of Japanese are opening new stores to sell Taiwanese food culture in various places in Japan. And, as expected, the product became famous rapidly, and it became a social phenomenon until it sold well at every store.

The tapioca boom in Japan escalated to how good pictures could be taken, especially on SNS, and many young people gradually bought them not to eat but to take good pictures. In that way, the current situation of tapioca, which is prioritized over taste, is only a temporary "trend:" and it has begun to disappear due to corona, and now more and more stores are closing or broke. In other words, the store is closed because it has become bad. It's not because they have to close it, but because the number of young people who buy it because it doesn't look good any more on my page on SNS has decreased dramatically. 

Due to the sharp decrease in tourists, some Japanese sweets shops in Kyoto have to be closed. The local Kyoto people seem to have cooled down, saying, "Because it is not a long-established store that originally existed, stores built for tourists are easy to collapse even if you start from the Showa era." In Kyoto, the number of tourists was not only Japanese but also many people visited from all over the world and the economy was running by them.

The reason why tapioca became popular within a few years and the number of people opening stores increased was probably because the results of earning were really good. However, targeting some booms and targeting some customers is still dangerous. It's okay if you plan to operate with only the amount calculated from the beginning, looking at the period when what you are doing is popular, but some business owners have to carry debts and disperse. What is the next boom? Will it be decided whether or not it looks good on SNS and will soon disappear?

Japanese food culture "sushi" is popular overseas. Its popularity has not declined for many years, and it has become a representative of Japanese food in various countries. It doesn't matter if the Japanese chefs don't make it. There are also strange nigiri sushi and with strange ideas, but it doesn't matter because they are for the locals. And the sushi restaurant doesn't collapse. Whenever it is popular. What is this difference?

Sushi is popular with both men and women, from children to adults. For some reason, foreigners love teriyaki sauce, and it is very popular just to entangle the sauce with meat and sprinkle it on sushi. When you have a family meal, you'll always be happy if you have a hand-rolled sushi party that you can roll yourself.

Like Sushi foods from other countries have become popular and have never diminished. Regarding the situation of the tapioca store this time, is it just a symbol of the national character of "Japanese people who always like fashionable things"?