Gimme a Break…
Did you know that in Japan, Nestle has released over 200 kitkat flavors? Some of them are pretty bizarre, it’s kind of a collectors thing and a brilliant marketing scheme. Old flavors are retired and new flavors hit stands every year so only about 20 flavors are available at a time. Some are difficult to find because they are only sold in specific regions of the country. When Jeff and I set foot onto Japanese soil, I was on a mission to find Japanese fabric (more on that in a later post) and to collect as many kitkat flavors I could. I kept ducking in and out of convenience stores hoping to find some but I couldn’t even find a single kitkat being sold, not even the national flavor of green tea. By the third day, I was wondering if they sold them anymore! I thought it’d be easy to buy a few here and there. Luckily on our last night, Jeff and I went to get ramen at the Tokyo central station and look what we saw right across from the ramen shop:
Holy moly, I hit the jackpot!!! A whole display of all kinds of kitkats! As Jeff stood in line for ramen, I ran over to the store and bought up every flavor that they sold. The ladies behind the register were laughing at me when they saw the armful of chocolate that I dumped onto the counter. Jeff, however, was not so amused when he saw me emerge with over $200 worth of candy. He ordered me to turn around and march right back into the store and return half of them! hahahaha. I guess I got a little carried away!
These are the flavors that I ended up getting: blueberry cheesecake, strawberry cheesecake, red bean sandwich, almond tofu:
Apple, strawberry, cantaloupe, orange:
These were the “less appetizing” flavors that I ditched at the counter: Purple Sweet Potato, Hot Japanese Chili, Karo Syrup and Wasabi flavor:
The wasabi and hot chili pepper flavors just sound odd!! I thought the savory flavors would be wierd for candy, but apparently the soy sauce flavor is the most popular in Japan. My ultimate goal is to find Royal Milk Tea kitkats. I’ve been on the search for these for over 5 years! You all know how much I love boba!
They also sell all sorts of special edition kitkats. We were excited to see and buy some of these limited edition kitkats at our favorite Japanese burger chain, MOS burger!
How cute is the packaging on these hotcake flavored kitkats:
And these in a bullet train box!
Japanese packaging is always so cute and clever!
I’m so happy to get all these new flavors to try out! I somehow have to figure out how to store all this candy at home. We already have tons of green tea flavored kitkats from previous layovers we’ve had in Narita (if you are ever on a layover in Japan, you can always get the green tea flavor at the airports):
If you are ever in Tokyo and are searching for kitkats, save yourself some time and head straight to Tokyo Central station. This store is right across from all the ramen shops in the station:
And check out this blog that reviews and rates all the Japanese flavors!
Hi! And welcome to my site! I hope you find something that inspires you while you are here. 
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
This is crazy and here we are limited to just one kind of Kit Kat!
OMG this is amazing. Every Kit Kat lover’s dream!! Are you seriously going to eat all that chocolate?? If so, do you need help? Love, love, LOVE this!
sysoong! i’m going to send some for chowbella to try!!
I LOVE this! We spent New Years in Osaka and I was also hell bent on finding kitkats, as I knew they did this from the first time I went to Tokyo. However, we could only find “Strawberry Tarte” (sickly sweet) and “Sakura Maccha Latte” (YUM). We also did the same thing… popping into EVERY convenience store we could find. Aaaand my husband would have also had the exact same reaction if I spent $200… men just don’t get women and chocolate.
This is so interesting and would not mind trying the Strawberry Cheescake one! Thanks for sharing.
Oh, man. I can’t believe you put back Hot Japanese Chili! Chili and chocolate is an amaaazing flavor combination! But all those flavors sound pretty interesting and the packaging is adorable. Now if only I could get to Japan…
Its kind of unfair right? Plus they have the yummiest kind of food on their convenience stores. :/
they have onigiri, pudding, bottled tea, diff flavors of starbucks (the bottled ones)…etc
I love kit kats and I cant believe all the flavors. Chocolate can be stored in the freezer and does not go bad that I ever heard of. It only takes like 20 min on the counter to unfreeze, I do it all the time with frozen pretzels.
For anyone interested, here is a recent article in CNN on the kitkat phenomenon in japan! http://eatocracy.cnn.com/2012/02/02/how-did-kit-kat-became-king-of-candy-in-japan/?hpt=ias_bn3
Neat article, I enjoyed reading it. I posted this post to my facebook. I have talked to several of my friends about the different kitkats. I hope you don’t mind, but I find it very interesting.
Oh my gosh! Why don’t they do that here in the States??!!
Do you have a favorite of the new ones you picked up?
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