The Kitkat Factor

How many of you tried the European cheese flavoured kitkat? How many saw it and thought someone had put something in the development team’s coffee that day? How many of you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about?

Oh the kitkat flavours of Japan. What a chase you have led me on. The thrill of stumbling across a new flavour at the conbini; the horror of discovering there was one you missed (salty watermelon – I will never forgive thee); the JTE-scaring delight at being presented with a flavour you thought was gone forever; the evil laughter at feeding random varieties to friends back home (the aforementioned European cheese). God love the obsession with time limited flavours in this country. They don’t half make life that little bit more fun.

If you pop onto wikipedia and look at the list of kitkat flavours available, you’ll see what I mean about it being a Japanese thing to experiment with this humble bar. Whilst the UK (my homeland) has some different flavours available (mint, orange, dark, white) at all times, Japan has taken flavouring to whole new levels. Along with the time limited offerings, there are also a multitude of regional flavours. You can only buy these when you are in the given region (or order them online, but that seems like cheating to me) so they make reasonably good souvenirs when venturing around the country.

The name itself ‘kitkat’ (as many of you may know) holds a special resonance around exam time in Japan. きっと勝つ (kitto katsu) with its approximate translation of ‘surely win/succeed’ sounds close enough to ‘kitkat’ that their offering as good luck charms before tests isn’t wholly surprising. I brought back the orange and mint flavoured kitkats from the UK (since they don’t have them here) and gave them to my third year class. They were subsequently charged by my JTE to eat them between sections of their university English entrance exams.

My personal collection started some time shortly after I arrived in Japan. Prior to my arrival I may have heard faint rumours of the strange flavours that could be found, but they weren’t something I was intent on hunting for. I think that changed when I found my fourth or fifth type (I swear they came out more regularly back then…). I began homing in on the chocolate section to check if there was a new flavour every time I went to the conbini or supermarket, people started to tell me if they found a different one (salty watermelon again – grrr). Slowly but surely, wall space was consumed by perfectly tessellating kitkat boxes and not-quite-so-perfectly packed kitkat minis still in their wrappers (oh multipack flavours, I love you, but you’re annoying. You melt and go squidgy on the wall). The collection was born.

It was up in Sapporo, at Yuki Matsuri, that I discovered my first (well three as it turned out) regional kitkats. I knew there were some odd flavours floating around (we come back to the salty watermelon YET AGAIN), but I don’t think anything quite prepared me for jacket potato with butter flavoured kitkat. This sitting on the shelf next to grilled sweet corn flavour. I saw them, but I didn’t believe them. I’d had the triple berry flavour by this time, and the Muscat of Alexandria (wine) and thought they were disgusting. They’d tasted fake and were wholly unappetizing. I therefore expected the same from anything claiming to be both chocolate, and potato flavoured.

I opened the wrapper and smelt a jacket potato with just a hint of buttery goodness. I was confused. I took a bite and it tasted like a jacket potato with just a hint of buttery goodness. I was at once both delighted and disturbed to my core. Here I was eating a kitkat shaped and textured jacket potato. The corn was the same. The desire to try every flavour that got produced to see if they could ever match this feat was crystallized.

So far nothing has quite managed to reach those giddy heights of ‘WTF – there is no way that’s going to taste anything like it’s meant to’ but some have come remarkably close. The cola/lemonade flavoured set was pretty good (they included the fizzing factor somehow) as was the sports drink one (yep, basically an Aquarius flavoured kitkat). But my favourite one? That has to be the Valentine’s Day special from a few years back; white chocolate with a hint of lemon. It’s like love you see, sweet, but with the occasional hint of sour.

Note: It removes some of the fun, but if you want to check the currently available flavours, check out the Kitkat Breaktown website – http://www.nestle.jp/brand/kit/ (Japanese). I have found things in shops before they’ve been on the site though. There’s also a facebook page which if nothing else can provide some interesting (well I think so anyway ><) bits of Japanese practice.