When Mondelez moved Japanese Oreo production to China in 2016, Yamazaki Biscuits launched Noir as a deliberate replacement aimed at the people who actually liked the old recipe. The wafer carries real cacao mass, which makes it slightly bitter and astringent against a restrained vanilla cream — they’re sandwich cookies that work without milk. Cost a few yen less than imported Oreos in Japanese supermarkets, easy to find at konbini, and a small case study in a domestic brand quietly out-engineering an imported one.