In December 2014, I visited Tokyo for the first time. I had heard about the many varieties of KitKat and I picked up 7 of them, once I had never tried before, at Narita. Finally, I did a tasting of each of them with my roommate Matt and Anne, below is the run down. We started with the highly anticipated cherry blossom flavor:
Cherry Blossom KitKat: Green in color. Strong vanilla favors with just a hint of cinnamon. Full disclosure: I have no clue how cherry blossoms smell, let alone taste, so hard to determine how flavorful this was. But, it was delicious!
Next, we tried the Rum Raisin:
Rum Raisin KitKat: Rum on the nose, fruity on the palate, reminded of blueberry more so than raisin. Regardless, delicious!
The Red Bean proved to be interesting:
Red Bean KitKat: Smells like Red Bean, tastes like Red Bean, too close to the original (i.e. Red Bean) for comfort. (read: eww!)
Finally, a chance of pace with something spicy:
Wasabi KitKat: subtle notes of wasabi on on nose and palate, subtle sense of horseradish on the back olfactory after placing on palate. Oh and sweet! Light green in color, lighter than cherry blossom. Overall, delicious!
Back to something sweet to cleans the palate:
Strawberry Cheesecake: Too fruity, too cheesy, too sweet. About as expected.
The second spicy one on the tasting list:
Red Chili Powder KitKat: Smells like dark chocolate, hints of chilli on palate, definite kick (spice) especially in the finish. Most delicious of the batch so far.
Finally, ending the sequence with the remaining sweet one:
Strawberry KitKat: Pink in color, strong strawberry smell and taste, reminds of Hershey’s strawberry syrup. Super sweet.