Japanese KitKat Pakkana Series (product information)

It was often the case in Japan that I would find KitKat variations that I would never purchase for one reason or another. Sometimes, it was because the flavor was a repeat, particularly strawberry or green tea varieties. At other times, it was because the variation was based on the packaging, size of the candy, or some other aspect rather than on the candy itself being different. That  latter is the case with these products.

I'll be honest and say that I don't know what "Pakkana" means, but I'd guess that it's an onomatopoeia for the sound of something shaking in a box.  I could be wrong, and I'm guessing that, if I am, the language-philes out there will pounce on me and let me know my grotesque inadequacy in no uncertain terms.

Images from Nestle Japan's site.

Nestle Japan created a series of three boxes with 20 mini KitKats. There are 10 milk chocolate (regular) KitKats and 10 "adult sweetness" (semi-sweet chocolate) mini bars. The first is  a "circus" box which you shake lightly in order to get the clown to appear. According to the blurb, this is to help you enjoy the circus along with the KitKat. This seems like it would appealr to the type of people who are easily distracted by shiny objects. 

The second design is a "cracker" design, and I don't mean the salted dry snacks that we enjoy spreading peanut butter on or garnishing with slabs of cheese. This is in the sense of a Christmas cracker. They claim in their blurb that having this on hand will enhance the image of a fun and lively party, if you're having a party.

The final design is targeted toward sophisticates who think that boxes of KitKats can make attractive decorative pieces in their homes. This is called the "piano black" design and they encourage you to place it on your kitchen counter or in your office to impress people with your refined sensibilities. Of course, if you're that pretentious, I think you'd be better off parking a box of Godiva chocolates on your counter instead of KitKat minis. 

These are on sale for 630 yen ($7.91) per box and were introduced at the beginning of March while I was still living in Japan. However, I never saw them on sale anywhere and was around for about 3 weeks of their release. The web site does say that their availability is limited so you may have to look around a bit if you're a collector and just want the boxes. If you just want the candy, you can find the adult sweetness and regular bars anywhere and everywhere. 

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I like the naming of this because it sounds like you're in a race to get started on snacking. It's like the equivalent of "on your mark, get set, go!" I never saw this particular snack anywhere other than attached to the side of a 6-pack of beer. I guess that they figure that, when you're getting drunk, you may forget how to eat so they need to give you a bit of a count to cue you to get started

These little packets of salted snacks, which resembled basic processed potato sticks like Pote-long, were on a variety of beer offered by Suntory. Chances are that they were using the beer as a way of introducing a new snack product rather than attempting to get people to buy the beer by giving them a free snack. Since I never saw them packaged and sold separately, I'm guessing the reception was less than warm and they decided not to push their processed barbecue potato sticks. 

Meiji Double Choco Pucca

If the Japanese were as infantile and competitive about trivial lifestyle choices as some Americans seem to be (e.g., "Coke vs. Pepsi" battles), there'd be one camp for Meiji's Pucca chocolate and pretzel combo and another for Glico's Pocky. On the Pucca side, there is a wafer-thin fish-shaped unsalted pretzel which has a buried treasure of creamy sweet filling inside. On the Pocky side, you have a similar pretzel rod coated in a sweet chocolate-based coating. What you like depends on personal tastes, but I've always loved Pucca and been relatively okay, but not had any particular passion, for Pocky.

Since returning to America, I've seen Pocky a fair amount in run-of-the-mill supermarkets, but generally only in two flavors - regular chocolate and strawberry. They're also pretty expensive relative to the Japanese price, but I guess that is to expected since they are imports on this side of the planet. I've never reviewed either of these basic flavors, though some day I should. Pucca is a far more elusive catch, but I found this double chocolate flavor at the Daiso Japan in Mountain View, CA. It was not only a delight to find an old favorite on offer, but also very reasonably priced at $1.50. That beats the best Pocky price I've encountered by at least a buck.

I checked Meiji's site for Pucca and they don't list this double chocolate variety as being available in Japan, though I'm sure it has been on offer at some point in the product's history. As an aside, I'll mention that "honey milk" is the only flavor on the site in addition to the regular chocolate kind in a plain pretzel wrapper. The box, which is multi-lingual and lists information in English, Chinese, and Arabic says that this was made in Singapore. The thing is, I'm not sure that the Pucca made for the Japanese market also isn't made in Singapore, Taiwan, or some other country in which labor is cheaper. It isn't uncommon for products in Japan to say, "made for (name of company)" rather than "made in Japan." 

The question is, is this the same sort of Pucca that I enjoyed in Japan and the answer is absolutely, "yes". The flavor of the chocolate is stronger than regular Pucca, as is to be expected with double chocolate. This masks some of the rye flour flavor of the pretzel (which I love), but that's okay because it gives back a slightly intense semi-sweet chocolate flavor. It even carries that familiar coffee-like aftertaste of Japanese chocolate that I know so very well. The center is creamy and smooth and, if you don't gobble this down too fast, it will melt decadently on your tongue. These are insanely fatty and eating the whole box of 18 thumbnail-size fish at once will set you back 264 calories. The flavor is so nice and strong though that I was satisfied after 4 or 5, though it would be easy to just consume them all.

The good news is that I found an on-line resource for these which is economical and accessible to many. You can buy these from a place called eFood depot for $1.19 a box (cheaper than what I paid!) or a 4-pack for $4.60. They also carry Pocky and Pretz if your door swings that way. However, I'll stick with the Pucca.

Image from Meiji's Pucca web site. 

There's a cute little character gallery showing Pucca characters made up in different ways on Meiji's Pucca web site (including a somewhat politically dubious "afro Pucca"). If you're into cute Japanese characters, you might want to give it a peek. 

Morinaga Earl Grey Twig Chocolate (Product Information)

Image from Morinaga's web site.

On the Starship Enterprise, that's NCC-1701-D, not NCC-1701, you can imagine the ladies of Japanese descent wringing their hands and fretting about what to get Captain Picard for Valentine's Day this year. After all, the Japanese celebration of said holiday encourages women to give men chocolate rather than vice versa. Well, Japanese women of the distant future, Morinaga has your back and is proving that it is ahead of the times by offering an Earl Grey variety of its popular twig chocolate. Instead of having his usual cuppa, he can munch on one of these crispy treats and remember you when promotion time rolls around.

Of course, the women of the original Starship Enterprise had it easier as pleasing Captain Kirk was usually a simple matter of finding an alien babe of low moral fiber and setting them up for a coffee date. After that, nature would take its course and the Captain would be winking at you the next morning to let you know that you'd be moving ahead on the rankings in no time. The NCC-1701 was a swinging place and Captain Kirk didn't need a cup of Earl Grey to get his mojo started. 

Getting back to the matter at hand, I never reviewed Morinaga's Koeda (twig) chocolates because I tried them early on in my days in Japan and didn't really find them all that exciting. The chocolate tends to be on the soft side and not particularly exciting flavor-wise. I prefer chocolate with some good snap. They have little bits of almond in them and you'd think they'd have crispy bits, but they don't have enough to impart much of a strong almond flavor or a satisfying crunch. 

The "twig" name comes from the shape of the candy, which resembles the gnarly bark of trees in the eye's of some, and like something that may have come from a particular symmetrical bowel of an errant dog in the eyes of others. It wasn't on aesthetic grounds that I didn't have them, but simply that, while an adequate candy, they never really did it for me. They suffer from being rather insufferably boring, though the brand has been around for a very long time and I'm sure it has its fans. 

The earl grey flavor is a special summer variety and I'm sure it's meant to encourage people to enjoy a less "heavy" flavor in the heat. These are blended with bergamot to bring out the sense of Earl Grey, but even if I was able to buy this, I probably wouldn't. I tend to enjoy my tea best in liquid form. 

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I've been told that setsuden, or energy conservation, has not yet started in Japan and that it won't begin until "summer" starts in July or August because hot and super muggy weather in the mid to high 80's doesn't qualify as warm enough to kick on the air conditioning anyway. Let's say that I'm glad that I'm not spending another summer with air conditioners set at 28 degrees C./82 degrees F. in Tokyo. 

For those who want the illusion of coolness without the actual feeling, Tirol introduced a line of "Big Tirol Crystal" chocolates. The box design is supposed to bring to mind ice cubes and the flavor choices are, well, I think supposed to cool you off. The flavors are soft strawberry, sour lemon, and cool mint. I guess that you'd have to keep these in the freezer since setsuden would likely have them melting in a cabinet and eating cold chocolate would probably help you out as you melt in the boggy summer weather.