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| Yes, it's KitKats. This isn't even all of them. I left two bags out this pic. |
How is it that we're so far behind? It's obvious we should be able to make good, interesting KitKat flavors. But here we are. Stuck with normal, boring KitKats. Oh well.
By the way, there are much more than 14 flavors. But these are the ones we got.
14. Uji Matcha - It's green in color and smells like a KitKat. That's right. It smells like a KitKat. The taste though. Ugh. I am not a fan of Matcha tea. The initial bite was like, "oh, this isn't that bad!" But then that disgusting seaweed aftertaste hit me. Nasty.
13. Uji Hojicha - Sort of like the color of the discontinued tan M&M's, but with a subtle, nasty green tint. Like your bowel movements when you're sick. Absolutely the worst color of the whole batch. I smelled nothing. Totally neutral. I convinced myself for a second that maybe there was a slight tea smell, but I think I was trying to tell myself that rather than actually smelling anything. The taste is gross throughout. Eww. The same nasty taste as the Matcha after taste, but maybe slightly less worse (I am unable to use "better" here). How do you balance the ranking of something with a consistently bad flavor versus one with an okay initial bite that turns to AWFUL? For its consistency, I'll rank the Hojicha slightly higher than the Matcha. But not much higher.
12. Azuki Sand Aji (Red Bean Sandwich) - Chocolate color and smells like dirt. Not even really dirt. Maybe vermiculite. My initial tasting was that I felt it was kind of "neutral," or perhaps "interesting." But upon a second tasting after all the others, I didn't like it at all and ranked it near the bottom. There might be a slight fruit/jam taste mixed in, but the smell upsets the whole thing.
11. Amazake - White. Not as strong a smell as the sake one (see below), which makes sense because Amazake is sort of a low-to-no alcohol version of sake. Very subtle flavor. Maybe after eating all the other ones, this one was totally washed out. Sweet, but nothing really stood out, and the flavor just seemed to blend in.
10. Yogurt & Double Berry with Almonds - This one has no English on the packaging, so I'm using some internet research to figure out what it was. Unlike all the others, this didn't have a solid chocolate coating, but the top of the (white) chocolate had visible berries and nuts. They were sort of ground up. The initial taste was sort of buttery, maybe like a subtle version of the butter one (also see below). But then as it lingered, I also tasted the yogurt. I was not a huge fan of this one. It didn't taste bad, but it was just okay.
9. Hokkaido Melon - Peach color, and no real smell that I could smell. I bit into it and it indeed tasted like melon. Melon plus chocolate sounds scary, but this actually worked pretty well. It tasted good. Not at the top, but good. All the KitKats from here in out are pretty good. They are KitKats, after all.
8. Shinshu Apple - Normal chocolate color, but opening the packet gives you an instant blast of apple smell. It's so strong. Almost artificial. It smells like a sour apple hard candy and honestly doesn't taste that different. A powerful apple punch that was interestingly satisfying, despite some fears that chocolate and apple don't necessarily mix. I liked it. My wife did not. More for me, less for her.
7. Butter - White color, smelled like frosting. I was kind of scared of this one and what it would taste like. Would it really taste like butter? I guess it did a little, but the butter taste was pretty subtle. It was more sweet and creamy than buttery. It also had a notably harder bite (like dark chocolate usually has over milk chocolate). It was good though. Surprisingly good. Who'd have thought I'd like the butter one? This was honestly the throw-away package I got, expecting to hate it but willing to try something weird.
6. Rum Raisin - White color, and an immediate alcohol smell when opening the packet. I'm not sure it smelled like "rum," but it did smell like alcohol. I did taste the rum flavor though, and maybe a little bit of the raisin flavor. Nice, strong, sweet. Although I did like it more on my first try than my second. Honestly, I'm not sure why this one is ranked six. I almost want to rank it and ninth and move the three above this one place higher. These rankings are so arbitrary though, so I'm not going to be bothered by it. I guess I'm putting it up here because I like alcohol.
5. Amaou Strawberry - Pink color, smells like strawberry! And a natural strawberry smell, rather than an artificial one. The taste was also very strawberry, although I didn't like it more than the "strawberry maple" (yet again, see below).
4. Sake - White color and an instantly recognizable sake smell when you open the bag. Yep, this is going to taste like sake, I bet! ...And it does! Smells like sake. Tastes like sake. Maybe it has a slight fruity/apple taste to it as well. Or was I just making that up since this was the ninth one I tried? After a while, you can't really tell them apart anymore.
3. Strawberry Cheesecake - White, good smell. I'm not sure if I smelled "cheesecake," but what I smelled... I liked. Taste-wise, about the same. I'm not sure if I had blind taste tested it I would have been able to say, "cheesecake," but I did like the flavor. The strawberry part did stand out, and that was nice. As the taste lingered more in my mouth, I eventually did sense more "cheesecake" via a slow flavor build.
2. Strawberry Maple - Pink color and smells like strawberry Quik. No real maple taste here, I just tasted strawberry. And it tasted good! The taste of the wafer also stood out in this one. Like it was extra crunchy or flavorful or something. I dunno. Whatever. Still, no discernible maple. Should I hold that against it? Not really, because the strawberry was awesome. Better than the Amaou or Cheesecake versions. That's right, I liked the strawberry KitKat that smelled more like Quik than the one that smelled natural. That tells you a lot. Or maybe nothing.
1. Beni-Imo (Purple Sweet Potato) - This one had a lavender color, and smelled like vanilla. I LOVED the smell of this one. It started out with an initial fruity taste that I was SURE was going to eventually morph into some starchy "sweet potato" flavor like that slop at thanksgiving. But that never happened. It didn't taste much like sweet potato at all, and the fruity flavor remained. It was surprisingly great! I had this one first, so part of me felt like I had some bias liking this one because I started with it versus going with it as my fourteenth one when my palette was destroyed. Maybe that happened, but in my second tasting it still ranked strong.
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Some lessons learned? Apparently I really like strawberry flavors - since three strawberry flavors appeared in my top five. KitKat, you need to get working on bringing Strawberry KitKats to every shelf in the United States!
By the way, my wife ranked them too. But I didn't look at her list and we did the rankings independently, so as to not bias one another. Here were her rankings:
14. Shinshu Apple
13. Azuki Sand Aji
12. Amazake
11. Sake
10. Yogurt & Double Berry with Almonds
9. Strawberry Maple
8. Uji Matcha
7. Beni-Imo
6. Strawberry Cheesecake
5. Uji Hojicha
4. Rum Raisin
3. Butter
2. Amaou Strawberry
1. Hokkaido Melon
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