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

Melt In Your Mouth Chocolate Kit Kat

The new Melt In Your Mouth Chocolate Kit Kat sure does live up to its name. But Melt In Your Mouth Chocolate Kit Kat is a really long name for a Kit Kat so from here on out I'm going to refer to it as a Fudge Kit Kat because essentially that is what it is.

I haven't eaten any fudge in Japan and I've never seen it anywhere so either I don't know what to look for or it just isn't that popular here. It is more of a seasonal candy in the US though. Most of the fudge I consume is done so right around the Christmas holidays so the winter seasonal box with snow falling on evergreen trees is definitely appropriate. It will set you back a little more than a normal pack of minis though. For 230 yen you get a box of five Fudge Kit Kat minis each only 70 calories.

I love dark chocolate so I was very happy to see that this Kit Kat is covered in a little darker chocolate than what you normally get with a classic milk chocolate Kit Kat and the creme is also fudge chocolate so the overall effect is one of chocolately goodness. As advertised, it really does melt in your mouth. It's almost as good as the fudge your grandmother used to make. Maybe even better (but please don't tell my grandma I said that) because the wafers keep it from being too rich. If I were a Japanese entertainer I would let out an orgasmic OISHIIII after eating one of these. They're that good.

So far I haven't rated anything a 10 out 10. Someone asked me if that was because nothing is perfect. I told them a classic Kit Kat bar would rate a 10 but so far nothing has equaled the simple yet classic combination of milk chocolate and wafer. The Kinako and Cafe Latte bars have come close but they still weren't quite a 10. And then came the Fudge Kit Kat - an improvement on fudge and an equal of the classic Kit Kat. So here you go. My very first 10 rating. If you like fudge then this is the candy bar for you!

Final score: 10!

Decisions!

PollPub.com Vote

Which regional Kit Kat should I try next?

Corn Kit Kat
Strawberry Cheesecake Kit Kat
Apple Kit Kat
Golden Orange Blend Kit Kat
"Five Conspirators" Kit Kat (something to do with a pepper blend? maybe?)
Crimson Kit Kat (from Okinawa)



View Results

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Royal Milk Tea

We don't have Royal Milk Tea in America. And I'm pretty sure they don't have it in England either, despite the British guards marching around on the outside of this box. But that isn't to say that milk tea isn't delicious or not worthy of having its own Kit Kat flavor. I often drink milk tea in the winter. It's easy to make - two heaping spoonfuls of powder in hot water and you're ready to go. And if you're feeling poorly a fellow teacher of mine suggested milk tea with a squeeze of ginger as a cold remedy. You can also drink it cold but so far I haven't tried that, but my friend Masako orders it when we go out for dinner.

The Royal Milk Tea Kit Kat is again white chocolate with each bar being 100 calories (2 bars per box.) It smells just like the tin of milk tea powder I have sitting in my kitchen currently and the taste is spot on. A darker chocolate wouldn't have given it that dehydrated milk taste that you get with the real thing. Overall, it borders on being too sweet but then the drink it's based on is also fairly sweet, so really this taste combined with chocolate makes for a great Kit Kat.

I washed it down with some regular old black tea. I wouldn't recommend drinking milk tea with it just because then you would have milk tea overload and you might go into a sugar shock due to the sweetness but paired with a slightly more bitter drink, like black tea or coffee, then this is the perfect afternoon snack.

Final Score: 7

Ginger Ale Kit Kat

I'm a little late to the game reviewing this Kit Kat. It's been out for quite awhile already but I think I've figured out that the conbini across the street from my apartment only sells every other limited edition Kit Kat. So right now they are still trying to finish off the Kinako Ohagi Kit Kat inventory and they only just got rid of all the Mango Pudding Kit Kats. This means that I'm going to have to be more diligent about getting to the "big" city and making sure I get the latest Kit Kats. Such are the disadvantages of living out in the cabbage fields of Japan. (There are advantages - free veggies from my farmer friends for one.)

The Ginger Ale Kit Kat definitely lives up to its name. Whether or not you're a fan of Ginger Ale will probably determine how much you like this one. Each bar (2 fingers) is 100 calories and there are two bars in each box. These are once again white chocolate and have a slightly yellowish color to them. Somehow they manage to both smell lemony and like ginger ale. The package has a picture of ginger ale with a slice of lemon in it. I don't really drink ginger ale but I've never seen it with lemon before? Do people drink it that way?

Taste-wise it was an interesting experience. There was a strong lemon taste but it didn't override the ginger ale taste that was definitely there. The box advertises soda powder in the wafers and the photo on the front certainly highlights the carbonation in the ginger ale, but it failed to really deliver on that aspect. There was a very slight hint of a fizz but it was less of the bubbly sensation you get with pop and instead was just an odd sour note in a mix of other strange tastes. I suppose if you like ginger ale then you might like this Kit Kat but for me it was a snacking failure, especially since it left a flat ginger ale taste in my mouth for almost 30 minutes afterwards.

Final Score: 4

Cafe Latte Kit Kat

I reviewed the Espresso Coffee Kit Kat and the Tiramisu Kit Kat and wondered if they weren't the same Kit Kat in different wrappers, so when I saw this bag of Cafe Latte minis on the shelf in my local grocery store I wondered if this was just another repackaged version of an (underwhelming) coffee flavored Kit Kat. I was pleasantly surprised.

If you know me, then you know that I like my coffee strong and I like it sweet. (I like Starbucks black with six sugars.) So I have very high expectations from any Kit Kat claiming to be coffee flavored. From the moment I opened the bag the coffee smell was strong. The only thing that smells more like coffee than these Kit Kats is coffee. They are white chocolate but they have a light brown tint to them that is suggestive of their flavor - cafe latte. Each mini is 68 calories. Both the chocolate and the cream is coffee flavored, giving this a particularly strong coffee taste. It reminded me of the chocolate covered coffee beans I used to eat in college in order to stay awake - not quite that powerful but much more flavorful than with the Espresso Coffee Kit Kat or the Tiramisu Kit Kat.

Usually I prefer to buy bags of minis that have a mix of the crazy flavor and the classic chocolate. This bag came with only Cafe Latte Minis and for once I really don't mind. They make the perfect after work snack.

Final Score: 9

Kit Kats in the news

This piece in the news explains why there are so many different kinds of Kit Kats in Japan.

What it doesn't explain is why my 7-11 hasn't stocked the Ginger Ale Kit Kat yet. It looks like once again I will have to spread my net wider in an effort to get my hands on one.

Check it out!