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KitKat

Saturday, May 14, 2016

Candyology 101 - Episode 36 - KitKat

Candyology101-36

Let’s all take a break with KitKat on this episode of Candyology 101. Maria and I take a quick look at one of the most popular candy bars in the world.

Check out the full show notes.

 

POSTED BY Cybele AT 11:15 am     CandyKitKatHighlightRadio Interviews

Monday, March 21, 2016

Nestle KitKat Premium Hazelnut (Japan)

KitKat Premium HazelnutNestle is still churning out plenty of limited edition and seasonal flavors of KitKats in Japan, though I don’t acquire them as much as I used to.

This new version, sold in bags of minis, is called KitKat Premium Hazelnut. Japanese confectionery has a successful track record of adapting French techniques and flavors for the Japanese market, so I was very interested to see how the global Nestle corporation did in this version.

The little minis are quite small. It’s not just a shorter, half sized version of the standard four fingered bar. These are two inches long and 1.2 inches wide.

KitKat Premium Hazelnut

The flavor is called hazelnut, but what’s most interesting about the picture on the package, is that it features feuilletine along with some hazelnuts. Even if you don’t recognize the word feuilletine, you’ve probably had a version of it before. Think of a very crispy crepe, or the flaky layers of a sugar cone. It’s a caramelized sort of cookie that’s usually crumbled and added to other things, like chocolate ganache or cream centers.

The ingredients for this version of KitKat unfortunately show that this isn’t a true chocolate product, as many Nestle chocolate items tend to be these days. The chocolate coating includes vegetable oil, though a lot less sugar than the usual chocolate coating, so part of what gives this a premium feel is that it’s not as sickly sweet as the standard milk chocolate KitKat.

KitKat Premium Hazelnut

These little bars smell like sugar cones and roasted hazelnuts. It’s quite appealing. The chocolate coating is rather slick and has a little bit of an oily melt, but also a good roasted coffee and woodsy chocolate flavor. The center looks light and crispy, just like the usual wafer layers, but it has the precise flavor and texture of feuilletine. It’s a little grainy and as a more caramelized crunch to it. Magic. Still, the oily and slick mockolate coating lacks the complexity and texture of real chocolate. In this context, it seems to work on a candy level, but I wouldn’t dare call it premium.

They’re extremely satisfying, or not, because I actually wanted to eat the whole package. Sadly, the package only has 12 little bars (a single serving is listed as 3 bars). It’s an expensive treat and the ingredients don’t live up to the price. But the end result was too tasty to keep from giving it a solid review.

Related Candies

  1. Dove Hazelnut Crisp Dark Chocolate Promises
  2. Nestle KitKat Sakura Green Tea & Wasabi
  3. KitKat Hazelnut Cream
  4. KitKat Otonano Amasa (Adult Taste)
  5. KitKats: Royal Milk Tea, Ginger Ale, Bubbly Strawberry, Kinako Ohagi & Milk Coffee
  6. Eat with your Eyes: The Most Awesome Chocolate Bar Ever
  7. KitKat Temptations: Hazelnut & Coconut


Name: KitKat Premium Hazelnut
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Nestle
Place Purchased: Marukai Market (Little Tokyo)
Price: $5.99
Size: 4.8 ounces
Calories per ounce: 135
Categories: Candy, Nestle, Chocolate, Cookie, KitKat, Nuts, 8-Tasty, Japan

POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:37 pm     CandyReviewNestleChocolateCookieKitKatNuts8-TastyJapan

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Nestle KitKat Sakura Green Tea & Wasabi

Sakura Green Tea KitKatIt’s great when friends go traveling and bring back candy. My friend Amy (who often spits things out and then gives me her opinion) went to Tokyo and Kyoto. She was lucky enough to be there for the start of Cherry Blossom Season, which means that the limited edition KitKat Sakura are also on store shelves.

Sakura is a popular flavor in Japan. What that flavor is, is kind of a mystery to me. It’s not cherry or the orange blossom equivalent of orange. It’s just a soft flavor that’s more like almond to me, if other candies I’ve had are indicative.

This particular Sakura Matcha KitKat package is a little different from others I’ve had. It’s kind of like a King Size. The box is a little longer, and on the back is a little “to and from” space where you can add a personalize message.

Sakura Green Tea KitKat

Inside the package are three individually wrapped pairs of KitKat fingers. They’re not large, a bit smaller than the American version, as a matter of fact. They’re only 68 calories each (sorry, I couldn’t figure out the exact weight since it was all in Japanese).

Sakura Green Tea Kit Kat

It’s a white confection outside that’s flavored (and colored) with green tea. It’s not a very good white confection, a little greasy and waxy and very sweet. The green tea notes are not as bitter as some earlier varieties of matcha candies I’ve had from Nestle Japan. In this version, the Sakura adds a bit of a cereal flavor to it, maybe a hint of cinnamon and brown rice and a much lighter vanilla note.

As a whole, it was okay. It’s not a KitKat I would buy for myself regularly, even if I was excited that the trees were in bloom. I’ve had a few other varieties over the years, earlier versions were just cherry blossom with no green tea.

Sakura KitKatLittle Sakura KitKatKitKat Little Sakura

Wasabi KitKatThe other prized variety that I haven’t been able to find in the United States (unless I mail ordered, which usually ends in a melted disaster) was the Wasabi KitKat.

This is also what I’d call a gift variety, as I highly doubt people just go out looking for Japanese horseradish flavored candies. I love wasabi, but it belongs in my mashed potatoes and on my tuna and avocado roll.

The box in this version is very presentational, with stylized block print wasabi roots on the front. The box opens up to reveal 12 small, individually wrapped finger pairs of the candies.

Wasabi KitKat

Like most Japanese KitKats, the packaging is exquisite.

Wasabi KitKat

The flavor is, well, sweet. For the most part it’s a bland white confection, equally greasy and waxy as most other Nestle white KitKats. In this version there’s a peppery bite to it, like arugula or horseradish. It’s mild but noticeable. It was too strange, but also didn’t add anything to the experience. I think wasabi works best with starchy foods (mashed potatoes or rice), not with fatty foods like chocolate (or mock chocolate).

Wasabi KitKat

This is a novelty, not an extraordinary new flavor combination. I’m all for the combination of sweet and savory (umami), but this isn’t it.

Related Candies

  1. David’s Signature Beans Jelly Bean Sampler
  2. Morinaga Sweet Potato Caramels
  3. KitKat Otonano Amasa (Adult Taste)
  4. KitKats: Royal Milk Tea, Ginger Ale, Bubbly Strawberry, Kinako Ohagi & Milk Coffee
  5. Vanilla Beans KitKat & Bitter Orange Aero
  6. KitKat Red Bean & Fruit Parfait


Name: Sakura Matcha KitKat
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Nestle
Place Purchased: Gift from Amy & Robin (Thanks!)
Price: unkown
Size: 1.62 ounces
Calories per ounce: 126
Categories: Candy, Nestle, Cookie, KitKat, Mockolate, 5-Pleasant, Japan


Name: Wasabi KitKat
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Nestle
Place Purchased: Gift from Amy & Robin (Thanks!)
Price: Gift
Size: 5.2 ounces
Calories per ounce: 129
Categories: Candy, Nestle, Cookie, KitKat, Mockolate, 5-Pleasant, Japan

POSTED BY Cybele AT 1:43 pm     CandyReviewNestleCookieKitKatLimited EditionMockolate5-PleasantJapan

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

KitKat Hazelnut Cream

KitKat Hazelnut CreamKitKat candy bars in the United States are made by Hershey’s under a licensing agreement. Everywhere else in the world, they’re made by Nestle. The most vibrant culture for KitKats is undoubtedly Japan, but Europe has their share of KitKat variations.

I found this KitKat Hazelnut Cream at a grocery store called Golden Farms in Glendale, CA. There’s a large Armenian population there, so the local grocers in the area tend to carry a lot of Eastern European and Middle Eastern confections. This particular bar, though in English on the front, was made in Bulgaria. The bar is the single, chunky version of the bar which clocks in at 1.48 ounces (42 grams).

Hazelnuts are much more popular in Europe and Eurasia than in the US, in part, I think, because they do not have the far cheaper peanuts in such ready supplies as we do in North America. Italy has made the chocolate and hazelnut combination world-famous with the innovation of gianduia.

KitKat Hazelnut Cream

First, I’m not a fan of the big, single finger chunky KitKat style of bar. There ratios are completely off, the chocolate is too thick and the cookie wafers are less delicate. Now, don’t get me wrong, thick chocolate and wafers are still a great combination. They just lack the essential properties that define the classic KitKat, the lightness and balance.

The construction of this bar is a little odd in and of itself. It’s about 4.5” long and a little over an inch wide at the base. There’s a little stack of thick, light wafers in the center with a milky cream between them. Then it’s all topped with another layer of hazelnut chocolate and then encased in milk chocolate. The thick hazelnut topper is what’s odd here, it’s a lot of chocolate flavor and texture and much less wafer.

The bite is, well, thick. It breaks easily, the milk chocolate is well tempered and this was definitely a fresh bar. The three layers of wafer cookies are crunchy and airy, and the cream between then just slightly grainy and cool on the tongue. The centerpiece of this bar is the thick cap of hazelnut chocolate on top of that though. It’s not a pasty giandiua or Nutella style hazelnut chocolate though, it’s more solid, like Milka. It’s sweet but not sticky, there’s a light toasted nutty note to it, but it doesn’t scream hazelnut to me. The chocolate overall is much creamier with more milk flavors than the American version.

It’s an admirable bar and has a lot more flavor depth with some richer caramel notes and of course the light touch of hazelnut. But my hopes were rather above that, I wanted a powerful punch of hazelnut in there, thick ribbons of cream inside those wafers. But for folks looking for a more decadent KitKat, this is actually much better than the plain KitKat Chunky bar. It’s been around for a few years, so it shouldn’t be that hard to find if you’re in the right area.

See review from Rosa at ZOMG Candy.

Related Candies

  1. KitKat Otonano Amasa (Adult Taste)
  2. Milka NAPS Mix (Assortment)
  3. KitKats: Royal Milk Tea, Ginger Ale, Bubbly Strawberry, Kinako Ohagi & Milk Coffee
  4. Ice Cubes
  5. KitKat Temptations: Hazelnut & Coconut
  6. Nestle Experiencing KitKat Slump
  7. Caffarel Gianduia 1865


Name: KitKat Hazelnut Cream
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Nestle
Place Purchased: Golden Farms (Glendale)
Price: $2.49
Size: 1.48 ounces
Calories per ounce: 153
Categories: Candy, Chocolate, Cookie, KitKat, Nuts, 7-Worth It

POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:28 pm     CandyReviewNestleChocolateCookieKitKatNuts7-Worth It

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

KitKat Otonano Amasa (Adult Taste)

KitKat Adult ChocolateI love the combination of chocolate and cookies. The KitKat bar is a great confectionery combination of the two. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve craved sweets less and come to appreciate texture and taste a bit more. So an ordinary milk chocolate KitKat can be a little sweet for many snacking situations (and there are many snacking situations).

I picked up the KitKat Otonano Amasa, which is the “adult taste” version - a little less sweet and with more cookie texture.

KitKats from Japan come in smart little boxes instead of plain old plastic packaging. I suppose it’s wasteful, but they do protect the contents well. On the back there’s a little “To” and “From” section for gifting.

KitKat Adult Chocolate

Inside the box are two individually packaged two-finger pieces. Each is listed as 95 calories each.

KitKat Adult Chocolate

The bars are just like any other KitKat, cream filled wafers covered in chocolate. But the chocolate here has little bits of dark chocolate cookies incorporated. The taste is similar to the Oreo Bitter Bar I tried recently. But in this case the texture at the front is is the creaminess of the chocolate. The flavor is slightly bitter like charcoal or, well, Oreos. The crispy wafers are light and flavorless.

It was a great combination, I liked it so much that I bought another bag of the snack sized ones. Which is goofy because they’re ridiculously expensive for KitKats. The package here was $2.25 for 1.19 ounces, the bag was $5.89 for 5.29 ounces. I could get some fine chocolates (well, See’s) for about $16 a pound.

Which is what leads me to the trepidation I have about the bar. The ingredients.

Ingredients: Palm Oil, Sugar, Wheat Flour, Cocoa Powder, Salt, Cacao Mass, Lactose, Powered Skim Milk, Cocoa Butter, Yeast, Salt, Soy Lecithin, Baking Powder, Flavoring, Yeast.

Palm oil. That’s what the bar is. Most of the time I find palm oil candies to be greasy and stiff, but this was really well done for a rainforest destroying confection. Oh, and palm oil is bad for you. Far worse than cocoa butter. So if I’m going for a candy that has a whopping 160 calories per ounce (which is about as high as the scale goes), it’d better be exceptional. So while I enjoyed this candy physically like it was a 10 out of 10, the price and ingredients knock it back to 8 out of 10.

Related Candies

  1. Oreo Bitter Bar (Japan)
  2. Russell Stover Cookies ‘n Cream Nest
  3. Eat with your Eyes: KitKat Cookies Plus (Japan)
  4. KitKat Dark
  5. Q.Bel Double Dark Chocolate Wafer Bar
  6. Cookies ‘n’ Creme Showdown
  7. KitKat Bitter & White
  8. Twix Dark Chocolate


Name: KitKat Otonano Amasa
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Nestle
Place Purchased: Marukai Marketplace (Little Tokyo)
Price: $2.25
Size: 1.19 ounces
Calories per ounce: 160
Categories: Candy, Nestle, Chocolate, Cookie, Mockolate, 8-Tasty, Japan

POSTED BY Cybele AT 3:22 pm     CandyReviewNestleChocolateCookieKitKatMockolate8-TastyJapan

Friday, November 12, 2010

Nestle KitKat SemiSweet & Bitter Almond

Bittersweet KitKat (Japan)Just when I’d quit the limited edition KitKat pursuit, I’ve been sucked back in by two extraordinarily good Japanese KitKats.

In Japan (and everywhere else besides the United States), KitKats are made by Nestle. Nestle has the ability to make great chocolate and candy, but also possesses the ability and fortitude to make cheap tasting and inconsistent candy.

The first is the SemiSweet KitKat which sounds pretty boring. But just look at the package! It’s a beautifully done design in just black and red (except for the real-color image of the KitKat finger itself.) The bar is just a mellow semi sweet chocolate version of the standard milk chocolate KitKat.

Bittersweet KitKat (Japan)

The bars were perfect. I know I criticize the over-packaging of many of these Japanese items, but in this case it really did its job of both enticing me to buy and protecting the contents.

Bittersweet KitKat (Japan)

The chocolate smells wonderful, a little sweet but rich and bold. The first thing I noticed was the melt. There was a good snap to the chocolate but it melted quite readily. It’s a little sticky but has a lot of flavor, a combination of strong woodsy flavors, a hint of coffee and prunes. The wafers are crispy and don’t let the combination get too sweet or thick.

KitKat Bitter Almond (Japan)The KitKat Bitter Almond is what got me out to the stores in Little Tokyo. I saw Bitter Almond KitKat mentioned on Japanese Snack Reviews and thought it sounded right up my alley.

The ingredients say that it’s made with real dark chocolate (44% cacao), almond paste and almonds. While I’m not usually a big fan of the amaretto note in marzipan, I do love almonds. The limited edition KitKats have largely ignored nuts as a flavor, so this is a refreshing change.

KitKat Bitter Almond (Japan)

The box had the logo for TBC on it, which I had to look up (thanks again to Japanese Snack Reviews) to find out it’s a cross promotion with Tokyo Beauty Centers. TBC is a chain of spas that offer all sorts of aesthetic treatments, make up and consultations. I haven’t the foggiest what that has to do with KitKats so I’m going to just make something up, like you can get marzipan facial treatments for a limited time when you present your empty KitKat box.

KitKat Bitter Almond (Japan)

The chocolate is strong, slightly bitter and has a light acidic bite. The almond flavors come and go but are light and more on the side of nutty than amaretto. What struck me as so great, aside from the smooth and lightly dry finish of the chocolate itself was the freshness of the wafers. They were delicate and crispy. There was no cereal taste to them (not that I mind that), which allowed both the chocolate and almond to dominate. Every once in a while I got a little texture of some crushed almonds.

I loved this bar. I don’t know if the factory was just having a really good day and had exceptional ingredients converge in that moment in time on that particular bar but I felt like I was finally getting my money’s worth for these expensive imported KitKat bars. Texture, flavors and mouthfeel were simply exceptional. All other KitKats will disappoint me now. (And it’s always good to stop on a high note.)

But I’m left feeling that I should stop pursuing the fleeting perfection of limited edition bars (which are often less than perfect) and concentrate on quality candies that are available more reliably. Plus, the import premium I pay for these means that they’re over $30 a pound. If I’m willing to pay that much, I can get some really good chocolate.

Related Candies

  1. KitKats: Royal Milk Tea, Ginger Ale, Bubbly Strawberry, Kinako Ohagi & Milk Coffee
  2. KitKat Dark
  3. Choceur Nougat Bites & Marzipan Bites
  4. KitKat Bitter & White
  5. Almond Crush Pocky
  6. KitKat Milkshake


Name: KitKat SemiSweet
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Nestle
Place Purchased: Woori Market (3rd & Alameda - Little Tokyo)
Price: $2.49
Size: 1.26 ounces
Calories per ounce: 154
Categories: Candy, Nestle, Chocolate, Cookie, KitKat, Limited Edition, 8-Tasty, Japan


Name: KitKat Bitter Almond
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Nestle
Place Purchased: Woori Market (3rd & Alameda - Little Tokyo)
Price: $2.49
Size: 1.26 ounces
Calories per ounce: 157
Categories: Candy, Nestle, Chocolate, Cookie, KitKat, Limited Edition, Nuts, 10-Superb, Japan

POSTED BY Cybele AT 3:36 pm     CandyReviewNestleChocolateCookieKitKatNuts8-Tasty10-SuperbJapan

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

KitKats: Royal Milk Tea, Ginger Ale, Bubbly Strawberry, Kinako Ohagi & Milk Coffee

While the news that KitKat is now available in both Dark and Milk Chocolate is hot news here in the United States, Nestle continues to churn out fantastically inventive versions for Japan.

KitKat Assortment 2010

Japanese KitKat are getting easier to find in the United States, I picked up mine in Little Tokyo at various grocery stores. The price is a bit steeper than an ordinary KitKat, usually between $2.00 and $3.00 depending on the variety and the store. (Here’s one store in Little Tokyo.)

Royal Milk Tea KitKat (Japan)Royal Milk Tea has oodles of imperial ingredients, like palm oil and tea extract.

I get the impression that Royal Milk Tea is the Japanese version of what we know here in the US as Thai Iced Tea, a strong black tea mixed with lot of sugar and milk (in the case of Thai Iced Tea the shortcut is sweetened condensed milk).

Royal Milk Tea KitKat (Japan)

It smells lovely though, like a cross between Jasmine and Earl Grey Tea. There are sweet vanilla notes and a little roasted barley or lapsang suchong in there. The actual texture of the white confection (a mixture of milk, palm oil and sugar) is a little greasy but otherwise smooth. The flavoring of the coating is mellow and a little spicy, like a hint of chai. Inside there’s more of a darker tea. It’s quite milky, as the whole Royal Milk Tea name might imply. I’m not much for milk in my tea, so that part of the confectionery simulation is lost on me.
Ginger Ale KitKat (Japan)Ginger Ale sounded fantastic and horrible all at once. Ginger Ale is a great beverage, best served ultra cold so that it bites on the tongue with the chill, the peppery ginger flavors and the tangy/sour bite of carbonation.

I didn’t know that Ginger Ale was that popular in Japan, but I guess it must be if there’s a KitKat for it. Or Nestle has run out of ideas to make into KitKats. (Where are my Pixy Stix KitKats?)

Ginger Ale KitKat (Japan)It smells like ginger ale, right out of the wrapper. It’s amazing how they did it, it’s at once like cola, lemon and ginger.

The flavor of the white confection outside is sweet and a little lemony. Inside the cream has a warm and woodsy burn of ginger. There are little specks and pops of sour, like carbonation.

It’s a weird bar. It’s not comforting like I find actual ginger ale. But then again it’s more exciting, probably because I’ve never had a candy bar like this before. I can’t say that I’d buy it again, but I can see where it has its place.

Bubbly Strawberry KitKat (Japan)Sparkling Strawberry KitKat had a pretty package. Pink and red with a couple of strawberries set off by oodles of little soda bubbles.

I wasn’t quite sure what the actual flavor was, is there a strawberry soda that it was referencing, like those Ramune ones? Was it supposed to be like strawberries in champagne?

After opening I at least found out that it was a pink, strawberry flavored confectionery coating with the standard wafers and a tangy strawberry creme between.

Bubbly Strawberry KitKat (Japan)

The berry confection is milky and has less of a strawberry flavor than I would like. It’s kind of like the milk at the bottom of a bowl of Frankenberry. The startling and inventive part of this bar is the cream filling. There are little “pops” of flavor which emulate carbonation well. They’re not pop rocks or fizzing powder. Instead they’re granules of what I’m guessing is citric acid and/or salt. So the tongue gets lots of little explosions of intense sour or salt. It’s a good mix and fun to eat. I would have preferred more strawberry flavor or even dark chocolate (so it’d be like a dark chocolate covered strawberry with a glass of champagne).

Kinako Ohagi KitKatKinako Ohagi KitKat shows a mochi with kinako (and probably bean paste inside). The idea of converting that into a KitKat, honestly, isn’t that appealing to me. I thought the red bean KitKat I tried a few years ago was interesting, but putting all the flavors of mochi into a KitKat just seems like too much. A KitKat is a KitKat and needs to maintain certain aspects. Throwing too many things into the mix just means that something is going to be done poorly and that leads to disappointment.

Kinako Ohagi KitKat

I was relieved to see that this was at least a milk chocolate bar.

It smells deep and roasted, milky and a little like corn chips. The milk chocolate is soft and fudgy but passably good. The wafers are crisp and crunchy and the kinako is, well, like soy powder. It’s a cross between the flavor of corn meal and peanut butter - it reminds me of protein supplements. The toasty flavors go very well with the wafers and milk chocolate. But the traditional KitKat was good before. This doesn’t make it better.

Sakura KitKatThe last one confused me (and I didn’t take a picture of it, but you can safely substitute the Royal Milk Tea. It’s Milk Coffee KitKat but based on the box I thought it was Sakura Tea or something. What I also didn’t properly note was that this was on of the KitKat mailers, a box that has a little “dear” and “from” form on the back so that you can give it to a student to wish them luck on exams.

It smells sweet and milky and just slightly off. Biting into it the first time, I thought I was being poisoned and had a bad package. The center cream was just intensely bitter. Then when I caught on that it wasn’t cherry and it was coffee the bitterness didn’t seem so caustic. But still intense. Too intense to allow actual coffee flavors.

At least it was called Milk Coffee, with the milk first I was getting much more of the sweet white confection than coffee notes. Chewing helped, instead of my usual eating of the cream as a layer. It just didn’t have the rounded and complex coffee notes, it reminded me instead of what I thought coffee was when I was seven or eight years old - expensive bitterness.

Overall I was less than impressed with the heavy use of white confection instead of actual chocolate. (Nestle has been in trouble lately with animal activists over its use of poorly/unethically/unsustainably farmed palm oil - their response here.) I guess I’ve found after all this exploration (trying about three dozen different kinds over the years) that the plain old ones are great and the ones made with even better chocolate are phenomenal. They don’t need fancy flavors. But I’m not going to begrudge anyone who wants to have a little fun now and then.

Related Candies

  1. Ginger Chews: Hot Coffee
  2. Japanese KitKats: Yuzu & Red Bean Soup
  3. Vanilla Beans KitKat & Bitter Orange Aero
  4. KitKat Temptations: Hazelnut & Coconut
  5. KitKat Chocolatier (Strawberry & Green Tea)
  6. KitKat Milkshake
  7. Pocky Kurogoma (Black Sesame)
  8. Head-to-Head KitKat vs KitKat!


Name: KitKat Royal Milk Tea
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Nestle
Place Purchased: Marukai (Little Tokyo)
Price: $2.08
Size: 1.26 ounces
Calories per ounce: 157
Categories: Candy, Nestle, Cookie, KitKat, Mockolate, White Chocolate, 5-Pleasant, Japan


Name: KitKat Ginger Ale
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Nestle
Place Purchased: Marukai (Little Tokyo)
Price: $2.08
Size: 1.26 ounces
Calories per ounce: 157
Categories: Candy, Nestle, Cookie, Ginger, KitKat, Mockolate, White Chocolate, 5-Pleasant, Japan


Name: KitKat Bubbly Strawberry
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Nestle
Place Purchased: Marukai (Little Tokyo)
Price: $2.08
Size: 1.26 ounces
Calories per ounce: 157
Categories: Candy, Nestle, Cookie, KitKat, Mockolate, White Chocolate, 5-Pleasant, Japan


Name: KitKat Kinako Ohagi
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Nestle
Place Purchased: Marukai (Little Tokyo)
Price: $2.08
Size: 1.26 ounces
Calories per ounce: 157
Categories: Candy, Nestle, Cookie, KitKat, Mockolate, White Chocolate, 5-Pleasant, Japan


Name: KitKat Milk Coffee
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Nestle
Place Purchased: Marukai (Little Tokyo)
Price: $2.08
Size: 1.26 ounces
Calories per ounce: 157
Categories: Candy, Nestle, Cookie, KitKat, Mockolate, White Chocolate, 5-Pleasant, Japan

POSTED BY Cybele AT 1:32 pm     CandyReviewNestleChocolateCoffeeCookieGingerKitKatMockolateWhite Chocolate5-PleasantJapan

Monday, May 3, 2010

KitKat Dark

KitKat DarkThe idea of a dark chocolate KitKat Bar is nothing new. The new part right now might be that Hershey’s is introducing this KitKat Dark not as a limited edition item but as a regular product. (Though that is never a guarantee that it will continue to be produced.)

It follows on the coattails of Hershey’s introduction of the Dark Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup after also flirting with various limited edition releases. The construction is just as you’d suspect: a semi-sweet chocolate covered stack of chocolate-cream filled wafers all molded into a four finger bar.

Some folks who also spend an inordinate time not only eating candy but also reading about it may remember that the bar is one of Steve Almond’s obsessions mentioned in Candy Freak.

KitKat Dark

The package isn’t terribly exciting, it’s the same as the milk chocolate variety but instead of a beige swirl that says Crisp Wafers in Milk Chocolate it’s a bolder dark brown that says Dark and then followed by Crisp Wafers in Dark Chocolate. It may be hard to spot on store shelves if you didn’t know it was there.

It smells like sweet cocoa and cereal. The wafers are crisp and rather bland but provide and airiness to the candy. The cream center has a little bit of a greasy grain to it that I like so much that I often pry the planks apart with my teeth and lick it separately. The dark chocolate is quite sweet but has a woodsy and berry note to it that gives the candy a different flavor profile, it’s less about milk and more about cocoa. It wouldn’t call the quality great, but this is candy, not fine chocolate.

The ingredients don’t break out the difference between the chocolate coating and the wafers with cream, so it’s hard to tell what kind of chocolate is in there.

Sugar, chocolate, wheat flour, cocoa butter, palm kernel oil, cocoa processed with alkali, milk fat, contains 2% or less of lactose, soy lecithin, PGPR, yeast, salt, vanillin, sodium bicarbonate, milk.

Hershey’s brings these out as miniatures from time to time, I’ve picked them up around Halloween before (2007 & 2008) but the mini size has different chocolate ratios. For the most part when I want a dark KitKat I was buying this 100 Calorie KitKat Singles Dark version from Canada.

It’s hard to top the Japanese KitKat Bitter I had about three years ago which used actually good chocolate. But this is a nice change of pace if I couldn’t get the Q.bel Double Dark Wafer Bar.

Candy for Dinner has some good photos of all the various domestic KitKat versions including two introductions of the limited edition darks. For reviews of the UK version made by Nestle check out Jim’s Chocolate Mission and Chocablog.

Related Candies

  1. Q.Bel Double Dark Chocolate Wafer Bar
  2. Hershey’s Special Dark Pieces
  3. Fling: Milk Chocolate, Dark Chocolate & Hazelnut
  4. Ghirardelli Intense Dark
  5. Dark Chocolate Peanut M&Ms
  6. Ritter Darks
  7. Twix Dark Chocolate


Name: KitKat Dark
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Hershey’s
Place Purchased: sample from Sweets & Snacks Expo
Price: $.89 retail
Size: 1.5 ounces
Calories per ounce: 140
Categories: Candy, Hershey's, Chocolate, Cookie, KitKat, Kosher, 7-Worth It, United States

POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:36 pm     CandyHershey'sChocolateCookieKitKatKosher7-Worth ItUnited States

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