There is something about Japanese soft drinks, food, and candy treats that fascinates us here at Slashfood, and their chocolate bars are definitely no exception. Could you imagine biting into a Kit Kat stick, but rather than the regular chocolate and wafer flavor, you taste apple? If that isn't strange enough, how about Cherry Blossom or Melon?
The Japanese have certainly cornered the market on different varieties of the Kit Kat bar, with flavors ranging from Green Tea to Red Azuki Bean, to the premium "Exotic Tokyo" - a Japanese limited edition made with milk chocolate, passion fruit, raspberry, strawberry, cherry, blackcurrant and pepper. They even have an adult, Wine-flavored version, just in case the others are a little too tame for you.
In fact, as the folks over at InventorSpot have pointed out, Wikipedia now lists over 80 different varieties of the chocolate bar that have been in production at one point or another. Needless to say, I was a little disappointed this morning when I checked in at my local store and only found two different kinds available, but as we've said before, for some reason the flavored varieties just don't seem to do well over here or in the UK.
(thanks, Michelle!)
New York Times Magazine's food issue
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-25-2007 @ 3:38PM
Crabby McSlacker said...
I hate to be so Westernized that I can't appreciate variety, but chocolate-apple flavored Kit Kats? Ewww.
Actually, regular American candy bars are pretty awful compared to some of the better European or even Canadian ones. Our chocolate tastes so waxy. And the other stuff too, the nougats and caramels and wafers--they're all kind of salty and plasticky tasting. So I guess I shouldn't complain about the Japanese Chocolate Apple Kit-Kats, at least without tasting one first.
(But complaining is pretty much the whole point of Crabby's weird little health blog. Best not to even think about visiting http://crankyfitness.blogspot.com/ unless you can stand to hear a whole lot of whining.)
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6-25-2007 @ 3:54PM
JC said...
The red bean Kit Kat is awesome! And for the above poster, you're right. Don't knock it until you've tried it.
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6-25-2007 @ 4:32PM
Hidden_Agenda said...
I have had the Green Tea one. They were pretty good, but not something I would care to eat often. I will stick to my iced beverages when I need my green tea fix.
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6-25-2007 @ 4:56PM
Silver_Potato said...
Yeah having a wide variety to choose from sucks doesn't it? I don't know how Japanese people handle it.
I'm glad here in America we only have a small amount of crappy things to choose from.
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6-25-2007 @ 5:06PM
B said...
Remember the dark chocolate kit-kats that they had as a specialty years ago? I'm still looking for those in the stores.
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6-25-2007 @ 5:13PM
N. Suga said...
A friend brought back the strawberry and green tea Kit Kats for me to try. The green tea didn't taste very green tea-ish, but the strawberry one wasn't so bad. Apparently they're custom designed flavors from some fancy pants Japanese pastry chef. They even had his little profile on the box.
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6-25-2007 @ 5:16PM
jsmylie said...
It kills me that we don't see this kind of variety in America. I developed a taste for Japanese snack food while studying in Tokyo--particularly the delicious and hard-to-find Strawberry Fran--and it's been hard to shake it since then.
Never did bite into one of those bright green kit kats, much less an "Exotic Tokyo," but man, does it sound good!
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6-25-2007 @ 11:32PM
chip said...
I've had the chance to try most of these Japanese KitKats. I can say the best ones for me were the wine (even though I hate real wine), fruit parfait, red bean, kir, maple, cherry blossom, and green tea & red bean kakigori. The so-so ones were the annin (Chinese almond flavored tofu), apple, cafe latte, chestnut, Takagi's milk chocolate, Takagi's dark chocolate, cherry, brandy with orange, and Universal Studios swirl. I didn't like the peach, grape, yogurt, or strawberry.
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6-26-2007 @ 10:43AM
Miss Tiffie said...
i've tried all the japanese flavored ones... green tea, cherry, peach, melon, apple, blueberry, etc.. they're really really good!!! or maybe it's just cuz i'm asian...
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6-26-2007 @ 12:07PM
nat said...
hey be more open minded! these flavors may sound weird to you, but they are really delicious! i tried melon... creamy & fruity at the same time! red bean... awesome! i tried one with grape jam too.. very good!
and what may be weird to you, may be really a delicacy in the asian/ japanese culture! there are many cultural differences in taste.
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6-26-2007 @ 4:43PM
Sera said...
I've had all these varieties and I have to say, they are most delicious!!
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6-26-2007 @ 5:59PM
Kostika said...
Actually you're wrong about the specialty flavours in the UK. They have gone over rather well here. On the shelves normally we have 6 different Kit Kats. Plus depending on season or whatever marketing chi gets used, different special edition ones show up on the shelves. The Tiramisu is one of my favourites.
(normal, dark, big chunk, peanut butter, white, and orange)
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6-27-2007 @ 12:27PM
emily said...
apparently kit kats are huge in japan because of their phonetic similarity to "kitto katsu," roughly translated to "i'll do my best to make sure i succeed." parents oftentimes put these superstitiously charged treats in their kid's lunch the day of a big exam. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/02/02/wkitk02.xml
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6-28-2007 @ 4:44PM
Stan said...
So, am I the only one that remembers the coffee flavored Kit-Kat bar that was here in the States for a while? That one was awesome... and I wouldn't mind tryin out the apple flavored one.
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7-21-2007 @ 5:58PM
hoxharding said...
Green Tea flavor in desserts and candies are starting to become common here.
Japan also seems to share North America's love for melon flavor candy.
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