The Year 2020 in KitKats

So 2020 was a big dumpster fire for most of the year. However, KitKats are still on point here in Japan, and while I used to do more spaced-out, handful of KitKat posts, I decided to just wrap up all the delicious wafers into one post. Without further ado, all the flavors (mostly seasonals and new releases!) I was able to test in this, the year of 2020.

New Year’s Orange

So, the little mochi stacks with the bitter orange on top? Yeah, KitKat decided to make a nice orange flavor featuring cats on the packaging to conjure up images of that classic Japanese decoration. It is a white-chocolate-based flavor, with a taste similar to that of orange sherbet.

Yuzu Matcha

I love green tea. I love matcha in particular. I also love the Japanese citrus sensation known as yuzu. But do they go well together? The answer is kind of. You get a lot of bitter from the matcha, but the slightly acidic and sour yuzu doesn’t really seem to pair well with it. An interesting foray, to say the least.

Sakura Mochi

For the sakura viewing season this year, KitKat brought back the Sakura Sake flavor as well as the Sakura Mochi, which I haven’t been able to try until now. This has to be one of my favorite flavors ever: It gets that amazing cherry blossom taste, balanced neatly with a hint of anko which all really jumps out with that awesome wafer crispiness. I couldn’t stop eating these!

Salt and Lemon

So, summer came and it gave us salt. Lots and lots of sodium. The first entry was salt lemon, which had a tart lemon flavor with a hint of salt to bring out a bit more of its flavor. It was a white chocolate concoction, and unless you’re a huge fan of lemon, this flavor will be just OK.

Salt and Lychee

Full disclosure: I don’t really enjoy the flavor of lychee, so I’m not the best judge here for this one. Yes, it tastes like a lychee. Great! The salt really isn’t there and I didn’t get much beyond the lychee flavor to enjoy. Not for me, but if you do enjoy lychee, this one would definitely be worth your time looking into.

Sea Salt

Right, from salt and fruit to just… salt. These were white chocolate Kit Kats with some sea salt sprinkled in for good measure. They came in a paper bag with a variety of excellent sea life designs, and ten yen from every purchase went towards ocean conservation, which is a nifty idea. As for the flavor, you’ll get a lot of white chocolate with a hint of the saltiness in there to make you salivate more than you normally would. Worth it for the cool bags, not so much for the flavor.

Cookies and Cream Ice Cream

A while back, they had their whole vanilla ice cream deal where you could freeze it and then bake it for something akin to a KitKat baked Alaska. Well, they came out with a few more ice cream flavors (I didn’t manage to get the Strawberry one) so I gave Cookies and Cream a whirl. Unfrozen, it tasted a bit… buttery. It was odd, but! When frozen, it tasted more like a cookies and cream ice cream, but the KitKat became nigh impossible to break in half. Caution is advised!

Cheesecake

In the fall, there were the usual flavors, like Apple Pie and Chestnut, and then there was this one. It’s one that you can freeze and bake to get a nice new experience with your KitKats! On their own, they pack a very cheese-forward punch but that quickly dissolves into your standard white chocolate flavor. When baked, you get this awesome caramelization on top, giving it a beautiful sugary crunch texture and taking the edge slightly off that overwhelming cheese taste. The downside is that the bottom always seems to melt, so you may want to give it a hot minute to cool before you bite down!

Sparkling Wine with Strawberry

This came out in November, just in time for… November? When you open the packaging, you get a strong smell of alcohol, not too dissimilar from the smell of the Sake-flavored KitKats. The taste is a bit boozy, with the slightest hint of strawberry in there (the strawberry flavor is in the cream between the wafers). They aren’t very appetizing for me: They’re very boozy on the front and the flavor lingers in a not-so nice way. Worth a try but I’ll be looking to pawn these off on friends and family moving forward…

White Chocolate and Fiantine

Fiantine is a finely baked crepe dough with a nice crispy crunch to it. These appeared in a small deluge that came in December as part of the winter season. The chocolate has a light vanilla flavor, and if you taste carefully, you can get hints of that delicious cooked crepe dough in there as well. It’s a light, subtle flavor that really encourages you to slow down and be mindful of your eating (versus inhaling it, as would be my usual mission). It’s a great flavor and I would gladly buy these again!

There were a few fancy limited flavors at the Kitkat Chocolatory that came out in December, but due to the Coronavirus, I wasn’t able to get into Tokyo to procure them, but hopefully, things will be less crazy next year and I can resume my obsessive quest for KitKat!

Would a video review for a year of KitKats be helpful? Let me know! I’d love to make more videos for my YouTube Channel!