Yuzu Kosho Kit Kat - Kyushu Limited Edition

So what is a Yuzu Kosho Kit Kat? It's Yuzu Citrus and Japanese Chili Flavor and it's a limited special edition from the island of Kyushu. Yuzu are small yellow citrus fruits that are similar to a mikan orange or grapefruit. The juice and rinds are used in many different recipes but I was told by the little old ladies giving them to me not to eat them like I would eat an orange. Instead they said I should put them in my bath to ward off colds. The traditional time to do this is the night of the winter solstice and it's supposed to bring you good luck and keep you healthy. I can't say if that's true or not because my yuzu are still in the kitchen waiting to be used up, but it's definitely yuzu season because everywhere I look there are yuzu products being offered. My favorite is a hot yuzu and honey drink.

Yuzu Kosho is a spicy sauce made with yuzu, green or red chili peppers, and salt. You can see all three pictured on the box of the Yuzu Kosho Kit Kat. I've not run into this in any cuisine I've tried but I would love to taste it. Japanese food isn't really known for being spicy so anything with a little more kick would be a welcome treat. This Kit Kat certainly had more kick than usual.

Like the other Regional Limited Edition Kit Kats this came in a box of 12 for 810 yen. Each mini is 67 calories. I bought this particular box in the train station in Kumamoto near the beginning of my trip. The Yuzu Kosho Kit Kat is made with a little bit darker chocolate than a regular Kit Kat - so right there it's already winning with me. It smells more like dark chocolate than it did of yuzu. The yuzu flavor is concentrated more in the chocolate and the chili is between the wafers. It starts off with a nice chocolate citrus flavor and ends with a spicy note. The more you eat the more the spiciness builds up.

I mentioned with the Wasabi Kit Kat that I would be interested in trying other spicy varieties of chocolate and this Kit Kat certainly fits that bill. Unlike the Wasabi Kit Kat, I really liked this one. Maybe it was the dark chocolate. Or maybe the addition of the yuzu to balance out the flavor or maybe it wasn't as spicy as the Wasabi Kit Kat but I really liked the Yuzu Kosho Kit Kat. It was the perfect blend of sweet and spicy.

Because I bought this towards the beginning of my trip I started putting one or two in my purse to snack on throughout the day while I did touristy things in Aso, Beppu, and Fukuoka. Usually I have trouble getting through these larger boxes but I only have one of these left! If you get a chance to try these I say you take it.

Final Score: 8

Mild Bitter Kit Kat

I'm back from vacation in Kyushu and I find I have a backlog of Kit Kats to review. Some I've tried and just haven't posted and some others have been pushed aside in favor of holiday treats and the large package of Dark Chocolate Reese's my wonderful mother sent me for Christmas. I'll try to get back on track this week and should keep busy for several weeks more. Coming soon are Limited Edition Kit Kats from Kyushu, Okinawa, and Kyoto, random Kit Kat promotions involving cheese and coffee cups, and one more strawberry variety.

Today, however, is a special edition so special I figured I wouldn't ever be trying it because even though I am wholly committed to my Kit Kat mission I am not about to seek out the one store in Tokyo that carries it. But orchid64 over at Japanese Snack Reviews graciously sent me some to try.

These Kit Kat minis came in a bag of 14 sold only in Okashi Omachioka - a discount snack shop found around Tokyo. (I've mentioned I don't live in Tokyo, right? Because I don't. Not anywhere close. I live in the inaka out among the cabbage fields. I ride past a pig farm on my way to work. It's great, just not always conducive to finding the latest Kit Kat varieties.)

Each bar is 66 calories and covered in a darker chocolate than you get with a regular Kit Kat. The name Mild Bitter Kit Kat implies that the chocolate is dark but the real emphasis here is on mild. It is not a very dark chocolate - only slightly more bitter than the milk chocolate of a regular Kit Kat. I'm a huge fan of dark chocolate so you can take my assessment with a grain of salt, but I would have liked it to be darker. It promised but didn't deliver. The chocolate is a tad drier as well and overall the bar is a bit crisper, but overall the taste is not too far off a normal Kit Kat. It may be exclusive but it is hardly exotic.

Still, it was a good Kit Kat. I liked it. It was chocolate. There were wafers. And even if it wasn't as dark as I had hoped it was still a little less sweet than the white chocolate confections I usually get with crazy flavored Kit Kats. I'd still like a truly Dark Chocolate Kit Kat if I can ever find one. Until then I'll be snacking on the Dark Chocolate Reese's I have stocked away in my fridge.

Final Score: 8

And don't forget to check out the review of Mild Bitter Kit Kats at Japanese Snack Reviews!

Sparkling Strawberry Kit Kat

It's strawberry season in Japan. Well, technically it will be strawberry season in January but Nestle thinks that December is close enough so we have not one but TWO strawberry flavors out right now. I'll be reviewing the other one later. Today it's the Sparkling Strawberry Kit Kat.

I'm not sure what is supposed to sparkling about these strawberries. The front of the box suggests something carbonated - I guessed champagne. And it did have some fizzy powder in the creme, similar to the Ramune Kit Kat, but it didn't really sparkle in the way I had hoped. No edible glitter or champagne flavored creme.

The Sparkling Strawberry Kit Kat is 99 calories a bar and comes in a box of two. It was white chocolate and pink colored. It definitely smelled like strawberries but it was the fake kind. The taste was also of the fake strawberry variety. The chocolate was a very tart strawberry flavor. It reminded me more of the strawberries I eat back home in America, that need a little sugar sprinkled on them, rather than the really sweet strawberries I get here in Japan. I prefer the sweeter variety so this extra sourness was not something I really enjoyed. The addition of the fizzy powder didn't do much in the way of making it fizzy but may have contributed to the sourness because I remember liking the Strawberry Kit Kat I tried back in May.

Overall, I give this one a lower score. It was too sour and there are several other strawberry Kit Kats out there that I like better. Now maybe if it had really sparkled...

Final Score: 4

Strawberry Cheesecake Kit Kat - Yokohama Limited Edition

I recently took a trip up to Tokyo to visit a friend. I warned her before I came that I would be hunting Kit Kats so she wasn't surprised when I insisted on going in every conbini we came across. Although a fat lot of good it did me since I didn't find a single one I didn't already have. I had better luck in the train station though. They had lots of regional specialties on sale for those travelers looking for some last minute omiyage.

A few of them I had already tried, like the Soy Sauce Kit Kat and the Wasabi Kit Kat. And then there was the Sweet Potato Kit Kat that looked similar enough to the Roasted Sweet Potato Kit Kat that I didn't think it was worth the money to try it again. (If anyone has tried this one and wants to let me know if I made the right decision that would be great!)

But they did have Strawberry Cheesecake Kit Kat, which although it is doing very poorly in my poll, I just couldn't pass up. They actually had two choices available. The large box of 12 for 870 yen or a smaller box of 5 for 370 yen. The smaller box is actually made for mailing to your friends, which I think is a cute idea. I know I like getting candy in the mail!

The Strawberry Cheesecake Kit Kat is a specialty of Yokohama. With 69 calories a bar, this Kit Kat is another white chocolate Kit Kat but unlike the other strawberry varieties I've tried, it wasn't pink colored, just plain white. This is similar to how the Blueberry Cheesecake Kit Kat looked. Unlike the Blueberry Cheesecake Kit Kat though there was more of a noticeable strawberry taste although I still could do with a little more cheesecake flavor than what I got. What little there was tasted more like yogurt although it did a good job of balancing out the sourness of the strawberry flavor that I've tasted in other Kit Kat strawberry varieties. Overall it was a good snacking experience. I won't have any trouble finishing off my little mail pack. (Sorry friends you won't be getting any Kit Kats in the post anytime soon.)

Final Score: 7

Kit Kats I won't be eating anytime soon :-(

As hard as I try it is impossible for me to try every Kit Kat flavor available in the world, but luckily there are some other amazing bloggers who pick up the slack. Here are two reviews of two Kit Kats I won't be able to try anytime soon due to lack of availability.

Kit Kat Mild Bitter from Japanese Snack Reviews is a special edition Kit Kat that is so special it's only sold in one store in Japan. Too bad too because I would love a dark chocolate Kit Kat.

Peanut Butter Kit Kat Chunky from Snack Love is a British Kit Kat so that makes it hard to get here in Japan.

Check them out!

Whole Wheat Kit Kat

Whole wheat isn't that popular here. If you want three pieces of suspiciously light colored "wheat" bread at the supermarket be prepared to pay twice as much than you would pay for six pieces of bread whiter than Wonder Bread. Darker breads are on the top of "Foods I miss from home" list. So I was surprised to find a Whole Wheat Kit Kat in Japan.

The Whole Wheat Kit Kat is a Kit Kat Bar, so instead of two smaller fingers you get one large candy bar. I'm not a huge fan but chocolate is chocolate, right? This one happens to be milk chocolate and is a regular Kit Kat in everything except that the wafers are made with whole wheat. To be honest though there is little difference between a wafer made with whole wheat flour and one that isn't. It's not quite as sweet and there is a slightly different taste to the wafers (slightly more wheaty...wheatish?) but it's minimal. I might not have noticed if it wasn't this Kit Kat's selling point.

Still, because it was so close to the original, it makes for an excellent snack. And you might even be able to fool yourself into thinking it's healthier since it's made with whole wheat. That's what I told myself as I ate the entire thing in one sitting.

Final Score: 9

Wasabi Kit Kat - Shizuoka Limited Edition

I was in Shizuoka two weekends ago and because I almost left my luggage on one train and had to sprint back to get it before it left without me, I missed my next train and had to hang around the station for an extra 30 minutes or so. And that's when I came across the Wasabi Kit Kat - a Shizuoka special.

Wasabi is known as the Japanese horseradish and has a strong flavor that can open your sinus cavities if you have a cold. I'm personally a fan. I like it with my sushi and sashimi. And apparently most of it is grown on the Izu peninsula in Shizuoka.

But while I like it with sushi, I never quite imagined it as a Kit Kat flavor. Although there is a precedent for adding spicy things to chocolate. There is Mexican Hot Chocolate, a favorite of my friend Kristin. You can buy bars of Hot Chili Pepper Chocolate. And then there's my hometown speciality - Skyline Chili - secret ingredients: cinnamon and chocolate.

The Wasabi Kit Kat comes in a box of 12 like the other regional specialties and each bar is 69 calories. They are light green in color. They smell sweet like white chocolate but with a hint of wasabi underneath. But while the scent is subtle the flavor is not. This Kit Kat doesn't pull any punches when it comes to the wasabi, with wasabi flavored chocolate and wasabi flavored cream between the wafers. The sweetness of the white chocolate and wafer battles it out in your mouth with the hotness of the wasabi. It's just shy of being too much wasabi. Any more and you'd be grabbing for your water.

For me, it was a little too much. If I had that much wasabi with my sushi I would probably dial it back a bit and I would have liked less here as well. In fact, I don't see myself finishing this box anytime soon. I didn't even finish the two bars I usually eat when writing a review. But it was definitely interesting to try the spicy and sweet combination. I sometimes complain that some of the crazy flavors of Kit Kat are too sweet but this definitely wasn't one of them. I would be interested in trying some more spicy chocolate combos.

What do you think? Do you like your chocolate spicy?


Final Score: 4