Japanese Food Journal: Kit Kats

I'm fascinated by Japanese Kit Kats. Aside from Snickers and M&Ms, it's the only popular American candy I've seen so far. (the lack of Reese Cups was fairly traumatizing at first, but I got over it.) I, however, had no idea that Kit Kats could come in so many flavors. Pictured above are the Kit Kats I've tried so far: grape Kit Kats (the "muscat" one), melon Kit Kats, strawberry Kit Kats (in milk and in white chocolate), blueberry Kit Kats, and orange Kit Kats. Want to see something awesome?

That's a green Kit Kat, my friends. It's the grape one, in case you're wondering. White chocolate, so not that great flavor-wise. The melon one was delicious. I saw watermelon Kit Kats at Don Quixote (easily the most awesome store in Isesaki, where you can get just about anything, and I really mean that; the place is open until 3am and is HUGE), but they only came in big bags and I didn't want to buy a whole bag. The strawberry Kit Kat is better in milk chocolate, and the blueberry Kit Kat actually tasted quite good despite being white chocolate. The orange Kit Kat was also yummy.

However, my favorite Kit Kat flavor by far is the sweet red bean paste Kit Kat:

I happened upon this in the grocery store a few days ago and bought four of them. It's the first time I've seen this flavor, and I haven't found it anywhere else. And I love it.

I love azuki beans, whether in their regular bean form or as sweet red bean paste. Not a day passes that I don't eat azuki beans in some way, whether in a rice ball, or in daifuku, or as sekihan (which is just rice mixed with the beans), or as yokan (which is kind of like a hard jelly), or as a filling in bread. Seriously, I think it's become an addiction. Benni-sensei and my students think this is pretty amusing because, apparently, most foreigners don't really like azuki beans. I don't understand this, because they're delicious. It's a little strange for me, however, because I normally don't like beans and generally avoid them.

But, back to the topic at hand: Kit Kats! Who knew that you could get them in so many flavors? Not me, and let me tell you, discovering this has been playing havoc on my daily calorie count. The really excellent thing about Kit Kats is that they're packaged in pairs and are smaller than American Kit Kats, so eating one pack is really not that bad. That box of red bean Kit Kats will last two days. So, in my little cabinet in the school canteen, I've got a little stack of various flavors of Kit Kats. Again, Benni-sensei finds this extremely amusing. Actually, she finds everything about my cabinet extremely amusing, because I also have assorted instant ramen packages, several packets of instant soup, and three or four varieties of senbei (rice crackers). I have this really bad habit of randomly buying stuff just to see what it tastes like.

Hmm, I should definitely do a post on senbei some time. I had no idea that rice crackers could be so delicious.