Mango Purin KitKat Mini

If I were an incredibly huge narcissist, I might start thinking that Nestlé Japan keeps releasing new KitKats to make it harder and harder for me to come up with things to say about them in reviews. While I suffer from the same self-centeredness as most other humans, my ego isn't quite that big, so I have to assume the company is just mining one of the longer running food fads in Japan for a new flavor.

Mango has been pretty hot in Japan for quite some time now. The boom in sales of things like dried mango and mango-flavored foods may be almost two years old by now. I think it has been fueled in part by the idea that mango is healthy for you. I'm guessing some news report or celebrity probably touted its benefits some time ago and the fad hasn't reached a saturation point where everyone is just so tired of mango that they won't eat it no matter how good it is supposed to be fore you.


This bar is only sold in mini form at the moment. It can be bought as one tiny little bar (about the size of 1.5 fingers in total) for about 40 yen (42 cents) or in a large bag representing far more value for your investment, but with more bars than I care to have on hand. I got this mini at an AM/PM convenience store.

The bar smells fruity, though not necessarily of mango. It reminded me of a more generic fruit scent with perhaps a hint of mango. The bar is disconcertingly bright in color. The taste is on the milder side when it comes to the fruit aspects. The description on the web site mentions that it is supposed to be the flavor of "milk" and mango, and I think they did a pretty good job tempering any overly strong fruitiness with milky "pudding" (purin) taste. I thought it had some cantaloupe overtones as well. For a white chocolate-based KitKat, it was refreshingly not too sweet. My husband, who dislikes mango, actually liked this so that's a bit of an endorsement right there.

I'd certainly recommend sampling this if you have a chance, though I'm not sure I'd say you should buy a huge bag unless you adore mango. There's no weirdness to the mixtures of flavor and texture though, so chances are that the worst response would be indifference. The bar was released on July 13, so it should be around for awhile.

This is also reviewed at Snack Love.