We’ve touched on some of the more exotic Japanese Kit Kat flavors in past posts, but with over 80 flavors created to date (and more varieties hitting store shelves every year), the taste combinations that Japanese candymakers come up with are becoming increasingly bizarre.
Quick, guess what the most popular flavor of Kit Kat is in Japan right now. Go on, take a wild guess.
Did you guess original? Strawberry? Green tea? Believe it or not, the top-selling variety of Kit Kat in Japan is soy sauce [pictured above]. But what may be even harder to believe is that soy sauce isn’t even close the the most unusual flavor available in Japan today.
At the moment, just 19 varieties are currently available in Japan. Here just a quick run down of some of the flavors (past and present), arranged by category:
Sweet: Berry wine, golden peach, custard pudding
Savory: Grilled corn, miso, sweet potato, jacket baked potato with butter
Beverage-inspired: Ramune soda, Earl Grey tea, caramel macchiato McFlurry
Weird: Camembert cheese, pounded soybean paste, lemon vinegar
So what’s the secret to the success of the Kit Kat brand in Japan? It turns out that the answer is part marketing and part linguistic coincidence. Kit Kat is very similar to the phrase “kitto katsu”, which is a common sentiment of good luck (the phrase literally means “You shall surely win!”). Because of this, Kit Kats have become a small good luck charm given out to students taking school entrance exams.
The other half of the Kit Kat success story has to do with marketing. Capitalizing on the Japanese tendency to “Catch ’em all”, varieties of Kit Kats are quickly introduced and then pulled from the market to increase demand. In addition, certain varieties of Kit Kats are based on regional tastes, and are not always available nationwide.
For example, in the far north of the country, flavors currently offered include yubari melon and the previously mentioned grilled corn. Meanwhile, candy lovers visiting the southernmost tip of the Japanese islands can find limited edition flavors such as red potato and yuzu citrus.
ctmn
personally I found these various flavor very interesting & they are, most of time, tasty.
otherwise the company won't take risk to commercialize them.
just be curious & have a bite, you will find them delicious too 🙂
soyyopues
;-; I WANT ONE!
Dman
I'm missing the kit kat cheese cake, I loved that one!
Dan
Wow that commercial chick was horrible. It was like she was the person in the painting called the scream. Whats with the sound affects?
Rachael
I've tried Ginger Ale – meh and Caramel pudding – yum
Cloc Franco
Y yo que tengo que luchar para conseguir un mundano Kit Kat normal
fred armison
are these chocolate flaovrs? i don't how grilled corn can taste like candy
Geri Bannister
So interestind and gross at the same time!
Someone
Wow…That is strange..
Gloria!
the best kit-kat i ever had was the cherry blossom/ green tea one <3 <3 <3
it was so delicious!
khristine
i love the soda pop kitkat!!! wasabi was quite weird…
bill
love the green tea. check out snackertainment.com for some reviews
Kitsumi
Mango is awful, but the apple ones were great!
joji
among these, i did taste the green tea! delicious!
britton
they look good
The best place to buy good luck charms jewellery
hey there and thanks to your information ? I have certainly picked up anything new from proper here. I did alternatively experience several technical points the use of this site, since I skilled to reload the web site a lot of occasions previous to I could get it to load correctly. I were pondering if your web host is OK? No longer that I am complaining, but sluggish loading instances occasions will very frequently affect your placement in google and could damage your high quality ranking if advertising and ***********
healthehelen
Now I have to add 'go Kit Kat shopping' along with 'visit ice cream theme park' and 'buy as many bizarre bath salts as possible' to my list of must dos on my trip later this year. I don't know whether to thank you , or cry.
Online Japanese Candy Store in US
Wow, wonderful blog layout! How lengthy have you ever been blogging for? you made running a blog look easy. The entire look of your website is magnificent, let alone the content!
Maura C. Smith
How bizarre! Methinks I’ll just stick to plain chocolate… :p
Michelle Pinkowski
awesome, I want to try some.
Tpot Winefire
no this cant be real I don’t belive it my mind is completly blown right now.
Tordy Clark
Wasabi is the shit.
Carolyn Williams
this is really cool and I want to try all these flavors! a friend brought Scoop and I blueberry white chocolate kit kats and they were SOOOOOO GOOD!
Spencer Douglass
We have a tonne of reviews of weird Japanese Kit Kats on our youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/crazyfromkong.