A juice drink contained inside a tube made from plastic.
It's 'tu', not 'chu' or 'chew' because the name of the product is derived from the word チューブ (chuubu) - tube.
Can also be frozen in the freezer and eaten as a frozen treat or a popsicle. In that case, the center of the container has been made smaller so it can be broken in half.
This drink has a lot of similar products and other brand names. Tupet is the best known one (but not the first one). The other names include "Bou-juice (Stick-juice)" by Satou Seika, "Chu Chu Ice" by Alps Seika, "Pokkin Ice", "Pakkin Ice" and so on. Similar products outside of Japan include the Colombian "Bon-Ice".
The manufacturer of tupets, MAEDA SANGYO Co.ltd, issued a voluntary recall of this product in 2009, saying, "We understand that there has been some concern for an outbreak of mold caused by a flaw in the manufacturing process." After that, the company stated that "In the end, we have identified that resolving this problem by improving our facilities/machines would cost too much time and money." and decided to discontinue the product.
This drink has more than 30 years of history and many fans. The news of the discontinuation caused great sorrow among them. However, actually nobody was troubled because some similar products are still sold.
