Today, it is the one that helped kick it all off…

Soy Sauce

Soy Sauce Kit Kat

Well, this wasn’t the one that really kicked it all off, but it was the one that got me obsessed. I got a taste of strange kit kats from one of my students who brought some back from Japan and was awesome enough to pass some on to me. They were some kinda odd flavours that made me do some research. And my research uncovered the fact there was a soy sauce kit kat. Knowing there was a soy sauce kit kat made me NEED to chase them up.

Sweet, not salty

So I have had one before, but when I saw a box of them in Narita Airport I had to pick them up.

White soy sauce?

Opening up… yep. More white chocolate. But a mapley smell emerges from the packet.

Soy sauce? Really?

Biting in soy sauce is not the first thing you think of. I guess here in Oz, you say soy sauce everyone thinks of watery, salty, soy sauce. But in Asia you could be talking thick sweet soy sauce. If that is what you think of, then this is your kit kat.

A sweet, maple like taste is what you get. So it is not really a strange kit kat in many respects. But again it is a tasty one. You can quite easily eat a box of these… which I will be doing.

Taste: 3.5 / 5

Strangeness: 2.5 / 5

Today it’s…

Intense?

Intense Roast Soybean.

Intense you say?

This came as a box of 12 minis again from Tokyo Narita Airport. The box says they are Tokyo Limited flavour. Strange that I never found any around Tokyo at all.

Anyway, with a name like Intense Roast Soybean, that got me a bit excited. Intense! Soybean! Intense! Ha. Are they really calling the Kit Kat intense? That is a bit exciting to me.

Milk Chocolate! At last!

Opening the package up… finally, a milk chocolate kit kat! I was quite excited to finally have something not white chocolate. The smell was certainly the milk chocolate, but the “roast” in the title came through. More like some roast, burnt, grain or seed than soybean.

Yum

Eating it presented the same experience. The roast flavour was the dominant flavour, and again, like a roasted seed or grain. I am not sure the soybean flavour was evident to me. Miso and soy sauce for me had a bit more of the experience. What this kit kat presented was actually a really tasty roasty milk chocolate kit kat. It was like the wafer was roasted in a way.

I really really like this one. It is not intense, or at all strange I don’t think, but really delicious. Maybe is the fact I haven’t had a milk chocolate kit kat in a long time, but this was good. Not very sweet at all, so a whole box of these would be easy to eat.

Taste: 4 / 5

Strangeness: 2 / 5

Today is the one everyone is waiting for…

The Holy Grail

Wasabi Kit Kat.

These were the ones I was on the lookout for in Japan. The idea of a wasabi Kit Kat just sounded too out there not to be ace. But I had no luck finding them in my travels. That was until that fateful day flying home where I found them in the airport. I bought two boxes as I knew these would be, if not popular, the ones people would be most curious about.

A big box of Holy Grail

The box says they are Tamaruya-honten Wasabi. I think Tamaruya-honten is a brand or wasabi manufacturer, so this is another team up (like the kinda suspect aloe yoghurt kit kat). And this is limited to the Shizuoka Kanto district. They must like their wasabi there.

That familiar green

When you open up you get the nice green wasabi kit kat staring at you. Another white chocolate based kit kat. The smell is a hint of wasabi… not overpowering, but you can definitely smell it.

That's wasabi alright

But the taste… I have given this one to a few friends already and the reaction is usually the same. They eat and look at you and say “wasabi? really”. The a few seconds go by. Then that wasabi taste hits. Pretty strongly. There is absolutely no mistaking it that it is a wasabi kit kat.

There isn’t any of the heat, but that horseradish taste hits. And I like it. The taste does hang around a bit too long, but it is probably exactly what you think a wasabi kit kat will taste like. Is it my favourite? Nah. But is it unique? Oh yeah. I am sure this will be a polarising one.

Taste: 3.5 / 5

Strangeness: 4.5 / 5

Dipping into the bag tonight gives us…

Strawberry Cheesecake

Strawberry Cheesecake Kit Kat

“Really?” I am sure you are asking. “Strawberry Cheesecake?!”. I almost wasn’t going to buy these as they aren’t particularly strange. But they ain’t here in Oz, so of course I would bring some back.

Boring flavour, but no doubt super tasty

The box says they are a Yokohama special. They came from the airport on the way out so it is kinda cheating. But that is cool… I will take Kit Kats however I can get ’em.

That old familiar white chocolate

Yet another white chocolate based kit kat. Enough already! This could have been normal chocolate, but I guess white chocolate makes a little more sense. But I was a bit worried how sweet this might be.

You can see that the colour is just white. No nice pink colour for strawberry, just plain old white. I guess that is the cheesecake influence. It certainly smelled quite strongly of strawberry.

Sweet sweet strawberry

The taste was certainly strawberry. There was a hint of cheesecake, and maybe that added to the overall sweetness, but if it was simply called strawberry then it wouldn’t have surprised me.

Overall a nice desert Kit Kat. Certainly tasty. Not my favourite Kit Kat… I certainly prefer the more different flavours, and a little less sweet if possible, but I could definitely eat a box of these. Well I will be eating a box of them.

Taste: 3.5 / 4

Strangeness: 1.5 / 5

Two Kit Kats tonight. Another dive into the Kit Kat bag produced…

Aloe Yoghurt

Aloe Yoghurt Kit Kat

This was the first strange flavour I found. I happened to wander into a supermarket in Kyoto and found a bag full of these. That’s more like it! A bag full!

On the wrapper it has the initials TBC which I found out later from Ayako was a cosmetics brand. Kit Kats made in conjunction with a cosmetics brand? Hhhmmm. But I have had aloe before… aloe drinks are not uncommon, and I have drunk some with chunky bits. So while I know the idea of eating aloe would be strange, I knew kinda what I was in for. But I guess it is still a strange proposition in a way.

My skin will be radiant

Yet another white chocolate based Kit Kat. I can’t imagine aloe in normal chocolate so I was thankful for that. You can see the colour is just pretty white. It has a fair off white colour getting close to creamy.

Just a little funky

Eating it I get the hint of yoghurt, but it is the aloe that jumps right out. It is definitely the dominant taste. And again, while I know aloe taste, I can’t say this was that awesome. I didn’t not like it, but it was pretty sweet. And boy, the aloe taste hangs around for ages. So much so that I can’t say I was the enamoured with these in the end. I didn’t mind while I was eating it, but the aloe taste lingered too long for my liking.

Bummer I found a whole packet of these and not some other flavours. Oh well. Any wacky flavour is OK by me.

Taste: 2.5 / 5

Strangeness: 3.5 / 5