All things strawberry come into season in the winter in Tokyo. This KitKat is one amongst many strawberry treats I've been seeing as of late. The hook for this particular limited edition flavor is that it's supposed to be sweet and sour with the real fragrance of strawberries. I'll be the judge of that, Nestlé Japan.
"Senga Sengana", by the way, is a variety of strawberry. They grow in rambling vines and are known for retaining their shape, color and flavor even when subjected to preservation methods like freeze drying. They're supposed to have a pleasant aroma and tangy flavor. They would seem to be ideal for use in candy.
The ingredients list some sort of "strawberry sugar powder" as an ingredient. This is the extent of their use of Polish freeze-dried Senga Sengana strawberries in this KitKat. The bars smell like strawberry cake frosting, though they don't smell very intense. I'd say that they failed on living up to the claim that these have the fragrance of strawberries.
I could be mistaken, but the wafer portion of these bars seems narrower than usual and the coating thicker on the sides than regular KitKats. Both the filling and the coating are a Pepto-Bismal pink. The first bite is immensely sweet, but does taste strawberry flavored. In fact, this is the first time I have ever eaten a KitKat and got throat burning sweetness on the first bite. There is a bit of a sourness as an aftertaste, but it's really not very present.
This isn't a bad KitKat, but it's certainly not a great one. It doesn't taste artificial which is really no small feat for a lot of flavored chocolate, but it also is far too sweet to be a pleasant treat. Eating one made me want to rinse my tongue off to get the sweet flavor out of my mouth and I could only manage to eat one of the fingers in the packet I opened.
I should admit that I am not a serious fan of anything strawberry flavored. I love real berries, but flavored stuff doesn't tend to inspire me. My husband, on the other hand, loves all things strawberry, so I had him sample it to give it a fairer test. He wasn't a fan either. He couldn't pinpoint what was wrong, but he said it just didn't taste as good as he'd hoped. Both of us felt it came on too strong and sweet then had a strange aftertaste. So, this is definitely one of those KitKats which will sit around for awhile before the other half gets eaten, if ever.
This KitKat is also reviewed on Snack Love.
I don't think you're mistaken. It does look abnormally thick.
ReplyDeleteIt does look very Pepto Bismol-ey in color. I know what you mean about the throat burning sweetness, I have problems with that with some candies and snacks.
ReplyDeleteThe chocolate looks sooo fake. It looks terrible. What is it with Kit Kats and Strawberry flavour? This is the umpteenth time and variation i have seen. The last one i had was tsubu tsubu ichigo or ajiwai, can't remember, but none of them are really memorable.
ReplyDeleteThe wafer does appear smaller. I don't think i'd be game to try it after your review. It would be interesting to know just how many variations of strawberry they have made up to now...