Kit Kit Mega Matsuri - キットカット超祭り

My cousin was in Tokyo last week and I joked to her online that she should pick me up some limited Kit Kit flavors... later that day, she had already begun collecting Kit Kats for me. I have the best itoko-sama evar! ^^

I ended up with 7 flavors, many of which I've already encountered reviews for online - and a few of which I thought ended their production run by now. I can't say that I was disappointed by any one flavor for the most part - I know that Ginger Ale still carries that stigma of childhood illness for me as I was force fed it when I had the flu as a kid, so it still makes me nauseous when I taste it. However, that was not the fault of the Kit Kat.

There were some interesting flavors in the batch:

- Royal Milk Tea


This was exactly what I had expected, maybe a little more mellow. I've had it in liquid form and on biscuits as chocolate in Kinoko no Yama snacks, so I kinda knew what it was going to taste like before I even got it in my hands. Japanese "Milk Tea" in a bottle/can from Kirin certainly tastes a little artificial but is refreshing just the same. If you've ever had this, or pretty much any other brand of Japanese bottled milk or sweetened black tea before, that's exactly what these taste like. If you haven't, it's kind of hard to describe the flavor, then. They sort of taste like a tea that's been mellowed with milk and sugar, but it's a borderline plastic sugary flavor. I really can't compare it to anything I've tasted before other than the actual bottled tea that I imagine it's modeled on. The packaging claims that it uses real milk tea flavoring - it doesn't say how much, but I can't imagine that it's anything more than chemicals just going off of the taste.

- Fruit and Vegetable

I have to admit that I was really eager to try these. The packaging promises that it uses apple, carrot and other veggie juices, 0.25%. Honestly, all I could taste was the apple, not even a smidge of carrot or anything else at all. The apple flavoring was good, but that brings us to...

- Apple Cider Vinegar


Again, I love apple cider vinegar, so I really wanted to taste these as well. And again, these claim to use a small percentage (in this case 1.4%) of "apple cider vinegar powder". "Apple spices" as well, which I guess overpowered the vinegar portion, because there's just a minuscule aftertaste of anything resembling vinegar. These tasted almost identical to the Fruit & Veggie kind. Once more, not disappointed because they did taste good, but not exactly what I expected, either.

- Ginger Ale


Ginger Ale was easily the most unique tasting of the batch. It claims usage of 0.3% of "lemon powder", and also ginger ale flavoring. And I have to say, this did taste like real ginger ale because, as I said above, I actually got nauseous as a result, so I guess it really tricked my stomach into thinking I was drinking ginger ale (and also had the flu =P).

- Matcha (Green Tea)


I haven't "tried" this one yet, because I've had matcha Kit Kat and chocolate and ice cream, before. I imagine the the formula for the chocolate hasn't changed at all, and I requested it because it is my favorite flavor and the most delicious of all Kit Kats/chocolates, in my opinion. It replicates the green tea flavor quite perfectly and I can't even articulate how good they really are. Needless to say, I try to pick these up everytime I see them for sale.

- Soy Sauce


醤油 Shouyu, or Soy Sauce, I almost expected to be disgusting, but I wanted to try them. Surprisingly, they were quite good, almost defying description. Their taste hints at real soy sauce - of which they supposedly use 0.7% - with a normal chocolate taste base. But not soy sauce in a disgusting or off-putting way, like an undertone which compliments the basic chocolate taste. If you've ever had soy sauce, you know that it is extremely salty, and it's not like salt hasn't been done in Japanese snacks before (oft-paired with vanilla or caramel), but the salt doesn't overpower here. It also purports to use みたらし Mitarashi which is water at a shrine used to purify you before you enter, as close as I could tell that's what it was, there wasn't another definition fitting anything consumable in the 2 dictionaries I checked. These are part of a regional line of Kit Kats released every so often (I want to say once a year?) throughout Japan, in this case since my cousin was in Tokyo, she got the two Tokyo flavors, this being one of them. They come in more elaborate packages, and as with any 限定 (limited edition) products, of course they cost more. ^^;

- Kinako


黄粉 or kinako, is soybean flour, and it has a very distinctive taste. To me it tastes like subtle peanut butter (wow, that'd be a great name for a band). On that note, I have to say that these are too overpowered by the chocolate taste for the kinako to shine through. It's there, but very, very lightly - and for something that's already fairly subtle, barely noticeable. Like the Soy Sauce Kit Kats, these are part of the limited edition regional line, also a Tokyo flavor, sold in 12 mini bar packs.

All in all I was satisfied with these flavors, even though some were extremely similar, and on occasion the placebo effect of what they should taste like is overridden by the plain chocolate taste. (i.e. - I think the power of suggestion by the Soy Sauce and Kinako flavors' packages and that you know what they're supposed to taste like makes them taste slightly like that because you don't want to think you spent 799yen on plain Kit Kats with fancy boxes. But that's just the cynic in me, they do taste like what they're supposed to taste like - even if it is just slightly. =P)

Since she was busy the whole week and change she was there, I really didn't know what she was bringing back until after she returned home. Coincidentally, I ran across the best little site for snacks, called NapaJapan. They have an amazing selection already, and they've only been in business for a few months, over 350 items! I have another order of Kit Kats and other J-snacks coming hopefully tomorrow, or at latest next week, so look forward to more reviews soon(ish).