So I was on my way home tonight when I remembered I hadn't faxed in my time card to the head office for this month. Liking money, as I do, I thought I should fax that sucker in toot sweet. Once I was out of the train station, I ran into the nearest convenience store and made my way to the back...where I was stopped in my tracks by the image of another foreigner who was monopolizing the machine to copy/fax every page of her passport. Damn.
I took some money out of the ATM to kill time and was browsing around the store waiting for the other gaijin to piss off when I came across this little item:
Your eyes do not deceive you. This is Ginger Ale flavored Kit Kat. All I could think was, "What new fuckery is this?"
I have to admit I have this thing where whenever Kit Kat in Japan comes out with a new weird flavor, I take a great interest in knowing about it. I don't always buy one (some flavors I refuse to try), but the ingenuity of Kit Kat's Japan division never ceases to amaze me. I like to walk casually around the chocolate aisle of conbini and nod knowingly, thinking, "Ah, this month they've come out with xxx."
I have taste tested a variety of crazy Kit Kat flavors including; rose , red bean, pickled plum, Kuri (chestnut), green apple, kiwi, mango, lemon chocolate (yes, together), soy sauce (you saw that right, it was a Tokyo only edition), grilled corn (Hokkaido edition), and a host of other wacky, random ones.
Ginger Ale is not the most scary or strange flavor idea they've had, so I decided to give it a shot and buy the thing while I was waiting for that fax machine to free up. I threw it in my purse and moved off to hover menacingly around the copy machine to hurry things along.
After dinner I kind of forgot about buying it (attention span of a fruit fly, that's me!). It wasn't until I was looking for my cellphone to confirm several birthday party plans for this weekend that I saw it sitting there in the bottom of my beat up Vivienne Westwood bag. I decided to have it with my tea.
Since most of you won't get to try it (these wackjob flavors are limited editions inside Japan only), I'll reassure you now that you aren't missing much. The scent they used for the ginger ale is so strong that it practically slaps you in the face when you tear open the package. They also used lemon powder in the cream between wafers and the strong artificial ginger/lemon flavor isn't that great.
It rates higher than some flavors like soy sauce and miso, due to it not being disturbing, but it loses to flavors like sakura (cherry blossom), cherry cheesecake and Kinako. I give it 2 out of 5 stars.
Kit Kat score: ★★☆☆☆
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