There’s nothing better for a sick day at home than to write a review for Pocky Watch. Sure, the sugar isn’t good for my immune system, but it’s great for my morale. And today’s morale booster is  a new Kit Kat I spotted at the convenience store the other day: Bitter Almond. It’s apparently the result of a collaboration between Nestlé and Japanese hair salon chain Tokyo Beauty Center (TBC エステティック). Sort of the opposite of ‘For Men’s’ branding, I guess.

Whatever the source, Bitter Almond Kit Kat is pretty delicious. Rather than trying to incorporate whole almonds, Nestlé has crushed them up and mixed in the bits with 44% dark chocolate, which goes over your normal Kit Kat wafer. I’ve only seen these in the 99 calorie x2 packs, which have a nice brown pyramid design, and actually a pretty golden wrapper on the inside.

You guys know what’s up with Kit Kat, so let me go into the particulars of this one. I can’t say that the almonds add too much to the flavor. Even examining the wafers closely, I can only see a dozen or so bits in each. For actually almond candies, I prefer larger chunks, as in M&Ms or Meiji’s various ‘Almond’ products. But what is there does add a bit of nuttiness. The dark chocolate is what I really liked about these. It’s a dull sweetness that doesn’t overpower the almond or the wafer. I really could eat a bunch of these, and I think if you’re even slightly a fan of bitter chocolate, you should check them out too.

4/5

Buy Bitter Almond Kit Kat from napaJapan.com.

I was thinking about putting these in with the Kit Kat round up, but that post was getting so long and this is the first time I’ve had the chance to review Kit Kat Mail so lets call it a special occasion. My coworker called me mid day on a Saturday (which was odd since we work Mon-Fri) and announced she was in Hokkaido looking at Hokkaido Kit Kats, and would I like some. Hell yes! She brought them in on Monday and it took some serious effort not to rip into the cute little mail ready boxes. These Kit Kats are part of a line of regional souvenirs that come with a mailing label printed on the back. Domestically the box would cost about 140 yen to mail, and international EMS mail would cost about 1,200 yen.

I think the boxes could be sturdier but the interior is lined with packing material to help protect the candy. Each box contains five mini Kit Kats which are perfect for the health conscious, but kind of lame when you see that theres a good bit of empty space in the box.

The first of the two flavors is 焼きもろこし (roasted corn). Like a lot of the white chocolate Kit Kats, these smell like frosting. They’re more yellow then other white chocolate Kit Kats though, which i find cute, but also a little disturbing. I mean, that isn’t a natural yellow color. I love fresh grilled corn on the cob but these taste a lot like sweet canned corn and as a result are terrible. I think they make a fantastic souvenir for more adventurous pallets, but if you’re not actually going to Hokkaido, please don’t bother ordering these. 1/5

Melons are a delicacy in Japan and I’ve seen them average about 2,000 yen in the stores near me. Maybe its because I’m American or maybe it’s because I don’t like melon that much, but I don’t really get it. These 夕張メロン (Yuubari Melon) Kit Kats are flavored like the famous melons of Yuubari City in Hokkaido. The chocolate exterior is a little waxy and  bitter sweet. The wafer is striped with orange cream that tastes like melon (no big surprise there). The melon flavor isn’t too strong, fake, or sweet. I’m really impressed with these since I think they strike a good balance between real melon and fake melon soda flavor. 4/5

First up is the 充実野菜 (Full of Vegetables) Kit Kat from around last summer. I must admit that I skipped this one on purpose, but my coworker picked it up for me and I don’t want to be ungrateful. Plus its such a weird idea for a flavor. The flavor of the Kit Kat is based on a juice made by Ito En of the same name. The juice is a mix of vegetable and fruit juices that is supposed to be vitamin packed. The Kit Kat, though only two hundred calories per box, has no health benefits. It smells like apple juice and tastes like apples and salad. Its not bad, but the smell is overpowering and the color is off putting. I’ll stick with the juice. 1/5
Read Pretty Pretty Yum Yum’s review of Vegie Galore Kit Kat.

During the winter months in Japan it’s quite common to find vendors selling 焼きいも (roasted sweet potatoes) at events and out of the backs of trucks. I guess it was inevitable that Nestle would make a yakiimo Kit Kat. I could only find these in bags mixed with original chocolate Kit Kats. The yakiimo are super sweet, don’t smell like much, and mostly taste like vanilla frosting. As a lover of Japanese sweet potato, I found these disappointing. They are just too sweet. 1/5
Read Orchid64′s review of Yaki Imo Kit Kats.

This is the first of more recent Kit Kats (as in the last few months). ミルクコーヒー (milk coffee) Kit Kats are for those poor souls preparing for entrance exams. People outside of Japan have heard about hell-ish Japanese entrance exams through anime, movies, and news stories for a few years. I don’t know much about the process, but I will attempt to explain for anyone who doesn’t know. Schools of all grades will give exams to prospective students to weed out anyone they don’t want. I’m under the impression that the exams range in difficulty depending on the quality of the school and it’s often said that the hardest part of Japanese university is getting in (ie. passing the exam). Students in Japan will study long hours to pass their tests and are usually supported by their family and peers. Kit Kats are often given as gifts to students taking their exams and this one was specially made for the occasion.

I misplaced the picture of the actual candy, but the Kit Kat is white chocolate with a coffee cream wafer and looks almost identical to a white chocolate Kit Kat. The exterior chocolate is sweet and milky with a little bit of a yogurty tang. The wafer snuck up on me because it is extremely bitter. I think the idea is that the exterior is the milk and the interior is the coffee and the two flavors will meld in your mouth. I didn’t enjoy the contrast in flavors too much, but overall the Kit Kat was good. I have a feeling that coffee lovers will be buying up the rest of these. 3/5
Read Jen’s review of Milk Coffee Kit Kats.

桜抹茶 (Sakura Matcha) is the most recent Kit Kat to hit Shelves. I have yet to see it anywhere but Sendai Station. I was a little hesitant on this one because matcha is a flavor that can go either way. On the one hand it plays nice with sugar and loses some of its grassy flavor in sweets. On the other it can be too strong, to grainy, and too, umm well, green. I’m just going to say it: This Kit Kat is freaking amazing. The matcha is mellow and the wafer has a graham and cinnamon undertone. There is no grassy aftertaste and the chocolate and wafer are smooth. I highly recommend these to everyone, even those of you who don’t like matcha because this Kit Kat is just so different compared to other matcha incarnations. 5/5

Buy Japanese Kit Kats from Jlist.com.

Valentine’s Day is like Christmas to candy enthusiasts. This means we’re getting out of the long and drab days of strawberry season, into exciting and festive pink chocolate and candies for sweethearts. First on my plate is something that jumped out of me while wandering the aisles the other day: Raspberry & Passion Fruit Kit Kat.

Those are two of my favorite fruits, but while I certainly had had raspberry with chocolate, I hadn’t experienced passion fruit outside of a juice. As you can see in the pictures, there’s two boxes you can choose, one darker, one lighter; both festooned with fruits and hearts: depending on your preference, I suppose. I prefer the pinker box, but I’ll leave that up to you. Either way, you get a cute box, with a fantastic space on the back for a short message for your special someone.

Once opened, the boxes continue their the heart motif continue, on the inside of the boxes themselves, and on the wrappers. As with any Japanese Kit Kat box, you’ll get four long fingers, packaged in two wrappers, each just under 100 calories.

I really love these things. The smell is powerful, and makes my mouth water as soon as I put it under my nose. The fingers are dark, darker than normal Kit Kat, and between the biscuits are layers of more fruit juice powder. Someone at Nestlé was paying close attention, because the ever-important ratio of fruit to chocolate is dead-on. If you don’t have a Valentine already, you certainly will, if you give them a box of these tasty Japanese treats. 5/5

The newest craze in combini-land these days seems to be something called ‘Sparkling.’ You can get Sparkling Tea, Apple Sparkling, and now even Sparkling Strawberry Kit Kat. I haven’t quite figured out what it means, although there always seems to be an over-exuberance of bubbles, so the derivation may be similar to that of sparkling wine. Across the divide from Nestlé’s multiplying Kit Kat brand is Lotte’s fantastic line of Crunky malt puff-infused chocolate, which now comes in 苺のチーズタルト, or Strawberry Cheese Tart. Both have bright pink packaging and juicy-looking stock photography of strawberries, and both are being reviewed today on Pocky Watch.

スパークリングストロベリー [Sparkling Strawberry] Kit Kats come in the same mini-box as many of the other Kit Kat brands I’ve reviewed, containing two packs each holding two long Kit Kat fingers. The packs themselves are Cute with a capital C: pink and red with understated gold rings indicating the bubbly confection inside. It’s worth noting that each pack contains only 99 calories, like the other similarly-sized Kit Kats, making this a mostly guilt-free mid-afternoon snack. The Crunky, meanwhile, comes in a slightly harder to slowly parcel 271 calorie bar, which, after being removed from its sealed foil wrapper, snaps into two squarish pieces of reasonable size. This treat is in the 食後のシアワセ series, which roughly translated means ‘post-meal good fortune;’ a worthy description for any dessert.

The Kit Kats have a strong fake-strawberry smell that really isn’t off-putting, but isn’t terribly appetizing, either. The cookie itself is very much a let-down. The promise of Sparkling is not delivered on except for a very slight bit of fizzing. But after my amazing experience with Meiji’s strawberry chocolate bar, nothing really saves this. If you really, really love strawberry candy, and think the idea of it fizzing on your tongue sounds fun, go for it. Otherwise, I’d steer clear until Nestlé goes back to the drawing board. 2/5

Glico has shown us how it’s done with cheese with their recent release of Chocolat Fromage Dessert Pocky, and Lotte seems to be going in a similar direction, flavoring this bar with cream cheese powder, imitating one of my favorite non-chocolate desserts, the strawberry cheese tart. Where this bar falls down is that tarts rely heavily on the ingredients, and Lotte has (necessarily) cut corners here. The bar is actually not bad, and actually manages to taste quite similar to its real life sister, but I fear the aim may have been a little high. Lotte simply left me wanting the real thing. 3/5

Buy Sparkling Strawberry Kit Kats from napaJapan.

Buy Strawberry Cheese Tart Crunky from napaJapan.