My friend Jess just got back from spending Golden Week in Hiroshima and Fukuoka, and she brought me back some Kyuushuu-exclusive KitKats!
Yuzu Pepper
It’s called 柚子こしょう or Yuzu Pepper. This is what all of the the KitKat “gift” boxes look like. You can usually only buy these in souvenir shops.
The inside of the box.
Inside, there’s space for 12 “mini”-sized bars.
A yuzu, jalapenos, and some green stuff?
I’m not sure what to expect here. When they usually say こしょう (koshou),they’re referring to your standard black pepper, but I don’t see any in the picture there. Is that green stuff a mountain of wasabi? Is it ground up jalapeno (what I assume those peppers are)? Will it taste peppery, spicy, citrusy, all, or none of the above? I look forward to finding out.
It looks like you can buy these region-exclusive flavors from Nestle’s online shop, so I might be ordering one of everything just to try them out. It’s certainly cheaper than running all around Japan.
On an unrelated note, I gave away a bunch of the leftover Pocky the other day, and they all looked really nice when they were lines up on some nice plates.
Here’s the first of the Pocky reviews. I started off simple with three variations of the basic chocolate flavor as well as the dark choclate “Men’s Pocky”.
The next review will focus on the two strawberry flavors.
Acen is this weekend, and I won’t be attending, because I’m a couple thousand miles away at the moment. People have also asked me to start reviewing snacks that originated in Japan and not just Japanese flavors of western snacks. So, in the spirit of Acen (or probably any anime convention for that matter), I’ll kill two birds with one stone and make a series of Pocky video reviews to be released this weekend.
I just went to the store and bought whatever they had, and here’s what I ended up with:
14 flavors
From left to right, back row: Almond Crush Pocky, “Thin” Pocky, My Calorie Pocky, Pocky, Men’s Pocky, Strawberry Pocky, Crushed Strawberry Pocky, and Bitter Cookie Crush Pocky.
Front: Chocolat Framboise Marble Pocky and Mix Berry Marble Pocky.
So, I just spent an hour or so filming six shows to be released over the next couple of days.
After I had tried them all.
Some short comments:
Marble and Dessert Pocky were very chewy on account of the large amounts of frosting.
Cookie Crush Pocky were pretty disappointing.
Those that had real bits of what they were supposed to taste like tasted a lot better than those that were strictly relying on flavored chocolate/frosting (go figure).
I was pleasantly surprised by the My Calorie Pocky, Tiramisu Dessert Pocky, and Chocolat Framboise Marble Pocky
The first episode should be up sometime tomorrow. I’ll be comparing “regular” Pocky with “Thin” Pocky, My Calorie Pocky, and Men’s Pocky. Look forward to it!
Nestle’s Japanese site just listed two new flavors of KitKats that should be in stores tomorrow or Tuesday: Apple Vinegar and Lemon Vinegar. It looks like the apple will be in the standard four bar packs and the lemon will only be available as minis.
While vinegar anything doesn’t sound like a good idea for a flavor, this still is some good news. Checking the page for the lemon vinegar shows that the bag will only contain that flavor and not the crappy milk chocolate combo bags that have been coming out for the past couple weeks. Let’s hope it stays this way.
Welcome to the official blog of JT’s J-Treats! Recently, I’ve wanted something more permanent on the web compared to just a bunch of Youtube videos, and it always helps to have stuff in writing, so here we are! This should hopefully lessen the stress of having to put together a new video every time I find something new just to get the word out, so, without further ado…
I haven’t put up a new video in a while, and, of course, a bunch of new stuff has come out since, and they are:
Green Tea and Chocolate
A new kind of green tea KitKats came out last week, and a disturbing trend has also appeared. Like the “Choco and Rose” bags before them, these green tea “Assort packs” are kind of a rip-off in that less than half of the KitKats inside are of the new flavor. In this case, you get nine regular milk chocolate ones and only four of the new green tea ones. Up until last month, you the entire bag would be filled with the new flavor, and I hope things don’t continue like this. Moving on…
Kinako "Bar"
In Japan, the “Big Kat” is known simply as the “KitKat Bar”, and, up until now, they only came in regular milk chocolate. This one is “Kinako” flavored which is a powder made from soybeans. I normally see “kinako bread” in a lot of bakeries, which is just a roll of some sorts covered in this kinako powder. There was already a kinako version of the regular KitKats, and you can get special “Bitter Kinako” KitKats that are only sold in Tokyo souvenier shops.
The newest "Men's hard-fried" Doritos
Two new kinds of “Men’s hard-fried” Doritos have also popped up. The red bag on the left is “Spicy Chili” and the bag on the right is “Black Pepper and Spice”. It also proudly proclaims that there are seven different spices in addition to the black pepper. These are a little bit thicker than regular Doritos, and therefore, they have a bit more crunch in them as well.
Yokohama Shuumai Cheetos
Shu Mai flavored Cheetos also came out sometime last week. I wasn’t aware that Yokohama was known for it’s Chinese dumplings, but I’m sure Tim did.
BBQ and Chili Sauce Combo Cheetos
They’ve thrown “chili sauce” flavored Cheetos in with standard BBQ ones to make these new “Cheetos Combo” ones. They’ve been out for a couple weeks, but it seems that you can’t buy them in any store, at least none that I’ve been to. For now, it seems that these can only be won at arcades via UFO Catchers or whatever other machines they have. You can me see winning a bag here:
This machine had you shoot the paper holding the bags up with pellets. You get five shots for 100yen. Apparently, I only needed one. =)
