KitKat Sour Orange

It looks like the adults are back in charge of production at Nestlé Japan.  Milk chocolate, and proper flavours!  Lovely.

Nice sharp orange flavour with a slightly sour finish.  It seems like so long since I’ve wanted to eat more than one KitKat in one go.

KitKat Mikan

News of an orange KitKat is music to my sweet tooth. For worshippers of Terry’s (who know who you are and what I mean), it’s not in the same league, lacking the velvet lounge suit and mink codpiece of the venerated Chocolate Orange.

KitKat Orange & Chocolat

Ooh, lovely. Dark chocolate and orange – you can’t go wrong, can you? Much richer than the midsummer offering, but for all the richness the flavour wasn’t quite as strong as it might have been, so it loses one star. Could easily eat a bucketful though.

KitKat Orange and KitKat Pineapple

Can only assume these were released together as a pair of summertime specials, as the packaging is so similar. They seem to be all over the country but there was no mention of them on the KitKat site. I’m guessing that these aren’t limited edition and are going to be with us all summer…

…which, if you’re into orange, is a very good thing indeed. There’s usually not too much KitKat entertainment around through the long hot summer, but if the kombini’s going to have Orange KitKats on offer right through, I’ll be a happy man. And the orange is really rather summery. It’s not the rich orange oil that flavours, say, a Terry’s chocolate orange. It’s tangy and sharp. Top marks.

…but with the sun, you gotta take a little rain. I’m torn on the Pineapple. Maybe it’s just me. I’m not a great fan of pineapple. In fact, sticking it in a KitKat is probably about the only way you’ll get me near it. And then of course there’s the colour, which brought back terrible memories of the hideous monstrosity in the middle of this photograph. But while it smells vaguely of pineapple, it doesn’t taste much of anything you could put your finger on.

KitKat Exotic Kyushu Sakura

Or Exotic Sakura Assort, to give it its proper title. Each of the four regions now has a Sakura version of the Exotic collection, meaning half the box contains the “caramel white chocolate with orange and mango” that dissolved my teeth before, and the other half is those delicate pink cherry-flavoured ones.

All rather excessive, if you ask me. I’m not quite sure what the idea is behind this version, but when it comes to entirely unsuitable and random flavour combinations that leave us wanting less, it’s what we’ve come to expect from anything with Takagi’s name on it.

KitKat Torokeru Zeitaku – Brandy & Orange

Now here’s something – a very special edition KitKat, just as special as the gold-embossed box promises. Two individually-wrapped double-sized fingers filled with brandy cream, the aroma and the flavour of brandy and orange complement each other perfectly. So obviously, despite the gold, this isn’t from Takagi’s kitchen.

KitKat Blood Orange

Oh happy day oh happy day oh happy da-ay oh happy day for it’s an orange-flavoured plain chocolate KitKat. My nearest and dearest know what a messy effect a Terry’s Chocolate Orange can have on me. This is very much like that. With a KitKat. Today was indeed A Good Day.

KitKat Exotic Kyushu

This KitKat reminds me of a celebrity. Not a particular celebrity, but a type. The type that comes from a down-to-earth, humble background, goes on to worldwide fame and fortune and in the process goes irretrievably barking mad.

So immediately you detect the hand of nutter gourmet Takagi. And here he extends his ‘Exotic’ series to us oft-neglected southerners with “caramel white chocolate with orange and mango”. A bit like when a child comes in from the garden and offers you a mud pie made with real mud, it catches you unawares, you smile and say thank you very much. Well, not much like that actually, because these are really rather edible, though they’ll test even the sweetest tooth.

Various UK editions

We need to break this down a bit.

First, the Editions – a caramel and a Seville Orange – both faultless.

But you’ll also notice in the middle of that photograph…

…the abomination labelled ‘Luscious Lime’. The single star is because I didn’t envisage needing a ‘no stars’ rating. Tasted like it would probably keep your toilet free of germs for weeks.