CandyGerman and Koala Milch Cookies

Several Asian snack concerns that offer monthly or bi-monthly boxes or snack surprise packages have contacted me and I've reviewed those services. Recently, I was contacted by a similar service coming out of Germany. Since I've expanded the scope of this blog to include the occasional focus on other countries and their junk food, I was delighted when they offered to send me a (free) sample box so that I could get an idea of their service as well as enjoy what I was sure would be German snack treat delights.

If your notions of German treats comes from The Simpsons, in which we've seen (German exchange student) Uder eating "marzipan Joy Joy (mit Iodine)", then you've got the wrong idea. Think chocolate, gummy, caramel, and sugary delights. There was no marzipan in the box (though I would have been delighted if there had been), and, most fortunately, nothing which was fortified with Iodine... that being said, I did get a goiter in Japan so maybe I could use some Iodine in my snacks.

The assortment I was sent was not only broad, but large. CandyGerman, like many such services, chooses a variety of items and sends the box to customers. You don't choose what you get, but it is a good system if you like surprises. I don't generally have access to a lot of German candy, but some of these items or ones similar to them can be purchased at places like CostPlus World Imports. It would cost me about the same as a subscription fee to CandyGerman to buy this many European snacks locally, and I wouldn't be able to get every type of food that they sent in the box (not by a long shot). So, I pronounce this a pretty good deal based on my current shopping options. Of course, any person's shopping mileage may vary. If you've got a cheap German market down the street chock full of goodies - and, if you do, I envy you - then this may not seem like such a sweet package.

I received this package soon after they said it would ship and in very good condition. As you can see by the peanuts, it's packed well. None of the fragile items that were inside (cookies) were damaged in any way. Considering that it also included wafer-based "Happy Hippo" confections and they arrived in beautiful condition, I think that their packing passes any reasonable test.

If you think I was sent a "special" package with more or better items, then you can check on what they normally send by looking at/following their Facebook page. They're relatively new, but have posted some pictures and it looks like every box is as generous as the one that I received. I should note that the people who corresponded with me were polite, friendly, and prompt. I'm confident that if you have questions or problems that they'll work with you to make you happy. Their contact information with an e-mail address is on their site.

My conclusion is that the service is not "cheap", but it's not "expensive" for what you get either. You can have a box for around the price of a couple of decent chain delivery pizzas. However, I guess whether or not that comparison makes sense to you depends on what you believe is "decent" and what part of the world/country you live in. If "Little Caesar's" $5-8 pies are what you're finding fills your belly with fun-to-eat carbs, fat, and meat-like substances, then this may seem steep to you.

Over time, I will be reviewing individual items from the box, but I wanted to start with a curious one that overlaps with a Japanese snack since that is the name of my game most of the time. I was stunned to see a box of Koala cookies which is clearly the German variation on Koala's March (as they are sold as in Japan). I've tried several takes on this cookie (Hello Panda, Pucca, and a few different flavors of Koala's March) and I can say that, hand's down, this is the one that I've liked the best. I don't speak German, but I concluded based on the taste that "milch" is "milk". Also, I'm not a total dumb ass and realized that the two words sound similar long before I opened the package.

The basic look and feel of the cookie is pretty similar to all of the copies and the original, but there is a "cookie" flavor that these have which is much more prominent. The Japanese variation has a rather bland outer shell with super sweet filling. The shell on this German variation carries a sugar-cookie-style flavor and has a sweet milky white chocolate center. I don't like Koala's March enough to buy it most of the time, but I liked these a fair bit. However, be warned that they are quite sweet. Given that they are marketed toward the child market, this is no shock.

The company that makes these is not Lotte, but Kuchenmeister. My guess is that there is some agreement between the Korean/Japanese maker and the German one to allow for the packaging and product design, but the cookies have been modified to suit German tastes. There are two flavors - milk and chocolate - and it seems that they put a toy featuring a version of their mascot inside the boxes. Mine has a vampire motif, but the current one pictured on the web site has an ancient Olympic one featuring the mascot variations in togas. If Kinder Eggs have taught us anything, it's that Europeans aren't nearly as hysterical about toys with food marketed at children as Americans are. I tend to see this as a good thing, but I didn't bother to procreate so my opinion on this matter doesn't carry a lot of weight.

The cookies definitely get a happy rating. If I weren't such a sugar wuss, they might even get a "very happy", but they're a little too sweet for my aging palate. Nonetheless, they are tasty little cookies.

Bourbon Puchi Cake Kurogoma Milk

One of my enduring disappointments since returning to the U.S. is that, though Asian markets often stock Bourbon products, but they never have the kinako wafers that were my favorite of their line in Japan. Most of the time, they sell pretty boring stuff like little langue du chat (cat's tongue) sugar cookies, tiny chocolate chip cookies, mini pretzels, or potato chips.

I never understand why they sell Japanese versions of the same type of things you can get in the American market rather than more unique and novel snacks. It's like they expect you to buy tinier chocolate chip cookies for a higher price just because they're Japanese. Yes, it is true that they aren't quite the same, but they're also not different enough to really light any fires.

Fortunately, occasionally, a more unique item will sneak through whatever trade barriers keep out more Japanese snacks and this cake sneaked through. I found this at Nijiya Japanese market for $1.49. It has 6 of the most "petit" bits of cake you could ever imagine. Each is about as big as the tip of your thumb. There are 6 tiny little pieces and each is 29 calories.

The part of this which holds the most potential is the "kurogoma" or "black sesame" component. The "milk" portion is just the cream center, which is pretty average stuff. It's fatty and adds a good textural component, but not much taste. Most of that comes from the sesame topping which mixes well with the mild flavor of the cake and cream. The cake is very moist, almost too moist and a little mushy. That could be because the cream leeches into the surrounding cake over time and this probably spent some time on a boat making its way to the New World.

I liked this. I can't say that I "loved" it. The sesame is a nice addition which adds some flavor depth and I like the cream, but ultimately, the cake itself, which makes up the lion's share of the snack, is below average. I have to say that they are superior to Lotte's "choco pie" snacks and similar knock-offs, as those are greasy and dry at the same time, but it's not great. I'm not unhappy that I bought it, but I wouldn't buy it again.

H & H Trading Milk Stick Wafers

I saw these "milk stick wafers" on offer many times at local 100 yen shops like Lawson 100 as well as the hybrid market/100 yen shop "My Basket". I generally had bigger fish to fry and turned up my nose like some snack food snob at this pedestrian offering. Actually, the truth wasn't that I was too good for cheap wafers, but rather that I'd been burned far too often when it came to wafers in Japan. Sure, they could deliver a nice crunch, and often they were calcium fortified, but generally there wasn't much going on in the flavor department.

Image from Amazon Japan.

While I hate to be one of "those" Americans who whines about Japanese sweets in comparison to what I could get back home, I'm afraid that I'm going to have to turn to that sort of loathsome behavior in the case of what we commonly call "sugar wafers" here. In Japan, they rarely put enough cream or sugar between them, or the wafers were too thick and tough. There was one type which was bland, but I liked it anyway and that is the vanilla whole grain ones pictured above. Before I realized that Japanese sweets that were "healthy" and not especially sweet were still packing enough carbohydrate calories to increase my pants size, I used to buy these all of the time and polish off a package in no more than four sittings (sometimes in as few as two). These had a nice earthy whole grain taste that I enjoyed, but they were not what one would call a "sugar wafer", despite appearances to the contrary.

The cookies that I picked up an Hankook Korean market may not look like a traditional sugar wafer, but that is what they taste like. They are just a little unusual in their construction. The outside is standard crispy wafer material and the inside is sweet filling. There are two differences, however, between this and other types of wafers. One is that the thicker construction of this tube style wafer makes it less crispy and ever so marginally tougher. I'm guessing this is intentional to stop them from being brittle enough to shatter at the drop of a case of them being loaded onto a truck. They are surprisingly resilient to clumsy treatment.

OK, there are actually 3 differences... they also have a goofy slogan written on them in English. The Japanese above it just says "milk stick wafers" so this is not a translation.

The other difference is that they have "milk" flavor filling. As I've said before, "milk" is actually a flavor in Japan. It either tastes like powdered milk that has been sweetened (that's when it's really bad) or like condensed milk (that's when it's not so bad). These resemble the latter. Every time I buy one of these, I yearn for some flavor depth of some sort. Would it kill them to add some vanilla? Seriously.

All that being said, these are perfectly serviceable sugar wafers. The main good point is the excellent portion control. When I have a proper bag of sugar wafers, I want to eat a lot of them, but two fingers (53 calories) are in one foil packet so you are discouraged from eating more than one serving. They are sweet enough without being too sweet, and the wafer design makes them far less crumbly than the plank-style ones (which tend to flake off everywhere).

All of that being said, and even given that they only cost $1.29 (119 yen), I wouldn't buy these again. For 99 cents, I can pick up a package of European sugar wafers at a discount store that will have more volume, less wasteful packaging and a better flavor (like hazelnut). It's not that these are bad. It's more that they aren't especially good.

Starbucks Azuki Matcha Latte

One of the things that Japan used to be famous for was copious numbers of free samples. There was a time, in days gone by, that foreigners would remark that a trip through the food areas of a department store (the basement) would net you so many samples that you could get a free lunch. I'm here to say that those days are long, long gone. Samples are offered on occasion, but the only places that reliably pony them up are Costco and some of the posher traditional rice cracker (sembei) and sweets shops. Such shops still serve a cup of tea and a small sample in many cases, but things are far spottier in markets, bakeries and department stores.

Since most customers descend on open trays and baskets of free samples as if they were living in the midst of post-war famine, I can understand why various places have cut way back on offering them. Few customers tend to actually make purchases based on such samples anyway. In fact, one enduring frustration for my husband and I is that there are some things (especially in bakeries) that look good and if samples could be had, we might buy them. I don't blame the bakeries, but rather the greedy customers. Honestly, I've seen people hover over sample baskets trying to block other people's access while they feed themselves with two fists. I'm not talking about grubby homeless people or impoverished students (I'm not sure Japan actually has any poor college students), but middle-aged women in nice clothes with shopping bags bearing the names of tony shops.

My most recent experience with free samples came along this very day while I was hanging out in a local Starbucks waiting for my husband to finish a swim and rejoin me for a convivial walk home. I rarely sit in coffee shops because I'd rather walk about. However, with my recent surgery (on Dec. 20), I really felt too tired to spend an hour walking while he swam. Before half my thyroid was extracted and I attained a big piratey scar across my throat, I would have happily gotten some extra exercise instead of occupying space for the price of an expensive cup of coffee. As I sat there reading a medieval novel on my ancient Palm, one of the Starbucks employees walked over with a tray of samples and told me it was something for New Year's, but she said it so fast that I only caught the word "matcha" (green tea). Looking at it, I knew that it was a latte by the color, but I didn't know what the little brown swirl on the top was. It turned out that it was azuki (sweetened red bean) sauce. Frankly, I thought it might be chocolate syrup.

I'm not a huge fan of green tea. It's in the category of "if they serve it to me for free, I'll drink it, but I won't order it myself". I've tried a lot of green-tea flavored things including KitKats, cookies, cakes, bean cakes, ice cream, and actual tea, of course. On occasion, I've really enjoyed it because the right balance of bitter and sweet can really create something tremendous with green tea. At other times, I've felt far too much bitter or grassiness in the mix and that the green tea element was overbearing. To my taste buds, green tea flavoring is like coffee flavoring. It's easy to get wrong, and hard to get right.

This is how I remember my experiences when I'm out of the apartment and forgot to put my notebook back in my bag. Thank goodness for all of the advertising tucked into free packets of pocket tissues.

I sniffed the sample with interest and noted that the scent had some nutty elements as well as the familiar green tea scent. The taste was milky with a strong green tea flavor, but nearly zero bitterness. The creamy full fat milk and enough sugar to make it sweet but nowhere near cloying offset any unpleasantness that may have come from using such a strong green tea flavor. The azuki, which I perceived as chocolate based on the color and appearance, was too small in quantity to really add much, but it may have added a dimension that wasn't overtly "beany". It may have just added rather more depth of flavor. In fact, one thing that I really liked about this was that drinking it was such a multilayered experience. The texture was creamy, but not overly rich and the flavor was strong, but not overbearing. The manner in which the latte was made or the tea roasted left me with a good nutty finish.

I really liked this, and would actually buy one for myself now that I've tried it. Considering my relative indifference to green tea, that says a lot about how good it is and the power of offering free samples. I'm not sure how matcha purists would feel about this, but I thought it was truly delicious. That being said, don't be fooled into thinking the fact that this is green tea with red beans makes it healthy. If you drink one, you are essentially having dessert as a short one with regular milk has 180 calories, a tall about 300, and a venti nearly 400 calories. Since this is likely to disappear after the season is well and truly over, I'd recommend skipping dessert one day soon and enjoying one while you can.

Meiji Pucca Banana Milk

When I was titling this review, I was thinking about what I should call them. They're not quite cookies. They're not quite crackers, and though they're made with pretzel-like shells, they're definitely not them either. Like Pocky, I'm thinking Pucca is in a class by itself. The closest way to describe it is as a sweet version of a Combo that is made with more finesse and care.

I reviewed the classic Pucca with a chocolate filling and I liked it a lot. It was only that fact which drew me to sampling this banana milk variety. The truth is that I'm always a bit of wary of banana-flavored foods because they are often very fake. The main point about Pucca that works for me is the contrast of the pretzel-like coating with its rye flour notes and the sweet filling. I hoped that would work for this as well as it did for the chocolate version.

The cookies smell like strong, somewhat fake banana. The filling is super sweet banana with just a hint of a vanilla flavor. The "milk" part doesn't really come through strongly, but it's something you sense more as a creamy texture in the filling. On the first bite, you really mainly get the overwhelming sweet banana flavor. By the third, the sweetness detectors on my taste buds were overwhelmed enough to start picking up the pretzel exterior's unique and pleasant flavor. As is the case with all Pucca, the outer shell is thin and crispy and the filling is fatty and creamy. The entire box is 237 calories or about 10 calories per fish.

I liked these, even though the banana flavor is undeniably strong and fake and they're incredibly sweet. It's fake in a good kind of way though my husband didn't care for it (and he's generally less fussy about such things than me). I can't recommend these for just anyone, but I can only say I'd consider buying them again. They're cheap at 100 yen ($1.20) for a 46 gram (1.62 oz.) box and so intense in flavor that you don't have to eat many to feel satisfied.

Oshidori Milk "Cake"

When is a cake not a cake? Well, it's not a cake when it's a slab of hardened condensed milk. I have been intrigued by this product for quite some time. It has been in what I call the "Granny's snacks" section of Peacock Supermarket for over a year. I don't believe this is actually a snack for oldsters though. In fact, I think it is specifically designed for children but is in the section with old-fashioned treats.

For those who don't remember, "Granny's snacks" are what I call groups of unglamorous looking treats which are made by smaller companies. I call them that because they are the types of things which I think grandparents keep shoved in the back of a cabinet for months and dole out when grandchildren clamor for treats. I don't know that that is what happens when these are purchased. I just know that they are exiled to a different snack area than the more glamorous chocolates, Pocky, gum, and other items made by bit ticket companies like Lotte, Meiji, and Morinaga.

A package of 10 sticks of this milk candy cost 210 yen ($2.30). Each stick is 8 cm x 2 cm x. 4 cm (3.1" x .8" x .15") in size, and is 25 calories. They are made by a company called Takahata, which has a lot of the common ecological claptrap that many companies like to mention as part of their PR. The company makes handmade cheeses as well as a variety of these milk candies. I've only ever seen this "milk" variety, but they also have other types like chocolate, strawberry, yogurt and green tea.

I have had enough experience with "milk" flavored foods in Japan to know that these were going to taste like condensed milk. The point that I was most interested in understanding was the texture and the sweetness. The first ingredient is milk, followed by sugar. These are fortified with Vitamin E and the packaging advertises the fact that these are rich in Calcium. Each stick boasts 31 mg. of Calcium. To give you some perspective on the relative value of this food, I can tell you that an average adult needs 1000 mg. a day. Eating one of these is a drop in the bucket.

These sticks are hard, even though they look like they might be brittle. Breaking one in half with your hands isn't trivial, and biting into one feels a little like trying to shatter a hard candy with your teeth. I thought perhaps that one was supposed to suck on one like a hard candy, but that didn't seem to work. Not only don't they melt in your mouth very well, but they are the wrong shape. Maybe they're designed for young children to slobber over for a long period of time and take a long time to eat. The way in which they are sold doesn't seem to indicate that though. The multi-packs on the web site for this product look like souvenir packs for adults.

I actually liked these, despite the fact that I'm not over the moon about condensed milk flavor. They were lightly sweet and the flavor seemed relatively mild compared to other "milk" treats. I liked the texture and how they broke up when I bit into them, though frankly I was a little worried about what they'd do to my teeth. I can't recommend these for everyone. I think they're an acquired taste, but if you like condensed milk, they're definitely worth a sampling.

Calpis Soda Refresh Zero

I sought out this drink after one of my readers recommended it to me. You wouldn't think I'd need to have people telling me to try things, but the truth is that far more things are released than a single reviewer could ever manage on her own. If I had a stable of writers willing to try all of the things I don't want to try, then there's a slim chance most of the bases might be covered.

Of course, they'd have to be a stable of writing slaves since there's no money in blogging, but it would nonetheless be the only way to cover more food and drink. I can only eat and drink so much junk before the risk that my office chair will collapse becomes very real. There's a reason I mention calories in every post, and that's that I'm all too aware of what I'm eating and how much I can tolerate on a regular basis.

At any rate, I found this Calpis "Refresh Zero" soda at Seiyu supermarket for 98 yen ($1.12), but it is currently available in a wide variety of places including most (but not all) convenience stores. Seiyu was simplest the cheapest place to get it. This is a 500 ml. bottle with no sugar, though it says it has 1% real lemon juice. The first ingredient is lemon, followed by Erythritol. It includes powdered milk and lactobacillus cultures.

The combination is an uncommon one. It's the sort of thing you could never really have in real life because lemon and milk are not flavors that usually mix because lemon curdles milk. If you don't believe me, make yourself a cup of lemon tea and add milk. Watch the little curds float around.

At first, I thought this was just weird. Mainly, it seemed like lightly-sweetened, lemon mixed with club soda with a hint of milk. About halfway through the bottle, I started to actually like it and the mix of sour lemon and milk took on a yogurt-like feel which I found pleasant. I think this is one of those things that can be perceived as so new as to be hard to figure out how you feel about it at first, but then you either grow to like it, or decide it's really not your thing. It's an acquired taste, and, fortunately, I acquired it. That being said, it may not be everyone's cup of tea, or Calpis, as the case may be.

Random Weekend Picture 13

 A kiosk in Akihabara sells a vast array of milk drinks.

When I first came to Japan, I was surprised at the array of milk beverages. They don't just have low-fat and whole milk, but they have a wide range of fat concentrations from 0% to 4.4% fat. Skim milk with no fat is actually a little tricky to find, though low fat milk below 1% is common. There are also many flavored milks. I recall a product called "The Coffee Milk" (in English) that caught my eye when I first arrived. Fruit-flavored milk drinks and milk flavored with more native flavors like green tea and kinako are also available depending on the season. Note that all milk that I have encountered in Japan is cow's milk. These variations do not include sheep's milk, goat's milk, etc.

Japanese people tend to drink milk for health purposes rather than enjoyment in my experience. I've never had anyone say, "I love milk." As a kid, I grew up adoring milk and my family went through copious amounts of it so seeing milk as a healthy beverage rather than for pleasure was not something I was accustomed to. One of my former coworkers at a Japanese office used to drink a liter of it every day for his health. His colleagues (not me though) nicknamed him "gyunyu-san" ("Mr. Milk") for his habit. He didn't like that, unsurprisingly.

Daiichi Vanilla Bar

The Japanese seem to have a taste for sweetened condensed milk which I never developed. This is reflected in the fact that they'll squirt some from a tube onto their strawberries. In fact, there are some pervy videos out there of Japanese women provocatively squirting milky, semi-translucent fluid onto their mouths and faces. It's sweetened condensed milk, but we're supposed to think it's something else.

These are made by the same company that made the chocolate cream bar which I reviewed favorably. I bought this at Lawson's 100-yen shop where it was on display in the freezer case next to the chocolate version.

I had some hopes that this "vanilla bar" was actually vanilla. Unfortunately, I didn't taste any vanilla in it at all. The reason that I mentioned the love sweetened condensed milk at the start of this post is that this is the sort of frozen treat that is clearly designed for Japanese tastes. It doesn't smell like anything at all and the taste is like powdered milk. It's sweet but not overwhelmingly so.

The texture of the ice milk inside of this bar is much firmer than the chocolate cream bar in the interior and less brittle and hard on the outside. I even let it soften a bit to see if it would take on the same super creamy aspects as the chocolate bar, but no joy.

On the plus side, each bar is only 85 calories and you get three 75-ml. (2.5 oz.) bars for 99 yen ($1.06). On the minus side, the ingredients include palm oil and Sucralose and, though this is not bad at all, it just doesn't taste like much. Clearly, there is no vanilla flavoring in it, or so little as to not be detectable. If you like powdered or condensed milk enough to eat it in ice cream form, this might float your boat, but if you like something which is more flavorful, give this a pass. Note that this almost made "indifferent", but I can't in good conscience give that rating when I threw out the last bar rather than eat it.

Yakult Fermented Milk Drink

I've watched all of Michael Palin's travel shows and in one of them I recall that he drank fermented yak's milk. That sounds rather scary, but people in Japan drink Yakult on a regular basis and it's fermented cow's milk. Somehow seeing Mr. Palin drink from a bowl he's handed by a man who looks like a professional sherpa makes one feel more stand-offish than buying a tidy little bottle of liquid in Japan.

I've been aware of Yakult since my early days in Japan when I first saw Yakult ladies cycling around the city with insulated boxes full of bottles of their freshly made products. They trundled to various offices in the area I worked in and peddled their wares to health-conscious office workers. I never really looked into what the deal was with their drinks, until I decided to review Yakult. Note that this product has been around since 1935 so it has a long history and most people know about it.

You can do a search on Google and you'll get plenty of hits on the health benefits of drinking Yakult. The thumbnail version of it is that it is full of active bacteria cultures that aid in digestion. Mainly, that means that Yakult will put good bugs in your intestinal tract to fight bad bugs. One of the benefits of it is that it can survive your stomach's gastric juices and make its way to the places where it can help the most. This is unlike some supplements that claim to accomplish the same task, but burn up in your stomach before its little buggies can get to where they need to go.

The two bottles that you see at the top are very tiny. The packaging is like a milk jug, cloudy but clear so the color you see is the color of the drink itself. There is only 65 ml. of drink in it. Consider that the average can of soda has 350 ml. and you can get a greater sense of how small it is. The price reflects the tiny size. I bought mine out of a vending machine next to a Yakult distribution center. I had to buy 2 for 80 yen (89 cents) so it's 40 yen (44 cents) a bottle.

After peeling off the foil cover, I gave it a sniff and I couldn't smell much of anything. The first sip revealed intense sweetness coupled with intense yogurt-like sourness. It really is like drinking hyper-concentrated yogurt which is nearly as thin as water. The ingredients include sugar, powdered skim milk, and water. It's not bad at all, and I like yogurt so it certainly wasn't offensive to me, but those who dislike yogurt may find it rather unpleasant.

Here's the thing about health foods and beverages like Yakult; if you have a problem with your digestion, they are invaluable and, if you don't, you're essentially not gaining anything by drinking them. This is full of sugar and you can ingest the beneficial cultures through other means (including probiotic yogurt) without the sugar. This is simply one of the easiest and fastest ways to get them into your body and it's such an old and established product that you can be nearly certain it'll live up to its health claims.

Though I found the taste pleasant enough on the whole, it's not the sort of thing I'm going to be drinking for fun because of the sugar. Sure, it's only 50 calories, but I don't need a sugar shot of good bugs on a regular basis and if I want yogurt flavor, I'll eat yogurt. If I have a stomachache or gastrointestinal problems, I'll probably pick 4 or 6 of these up and drink them for awhile. One of my students told me she likes these as a good wake up elixir. The strong sour yogurt flavor and sugar are likely to pep one up, but, I'm not likely to buy it again unless I develop gastrointestinal problems.

Milk Coffee KitKat

I think this particular KitKat has definitively signaled the fact that Nestle Japan is running out of ideas. You'd think the hundred or so variations on strawberry that have been released would have helped me reach such a determination quite awhile back, but, no, I have given them the benefit of the doubt (and maybe I'm just a little dumb). Back in April, I reviewed an Espresso Coffee KitKat which looked, smelled, and tasted suspiciously similar to this one. The important point to keep in mind is that this KitKat isn't about adding a novel flavor to the ever-increasing roster of flavors. No, it's about marketing.


This KitKat contains the "support students" mark (the pink flower which says "kitto sakura sakuyo") that appeared on the KitKat Mail. This KitKat is timed to coincide with students taking exams. There's a little message box on the back of the box which says "Dear (big blank space for name and message" and "From (smaller blank space for name)." I wonder if the flavor selection is also related to students with the idea that coffee is often drunk to keep one awake during long study sessions. The PR on Nestle Japan's site says this is good for breaks when you're working hard.


This KitKat was released on December 21 and you can pick it up at various convenience stores. My husband found this one at the venerable New Days for 120 yen ($1.31) and deposited it on my desk for review purposes.

I like milk in my coffee and I enjoyed the Espresso KitKat so I thought it looked pretty promising. The bar smells like white chocolate sweetness and there's no coffee scent. The interior has brown cream between the wafers, but I think coffee flavoring is in the coating as well. The flavor is very much like instant coffee with milk. There's a slight bitterness to it which takes the edge off of the white chocolate sweetness. The wafer flavor seemed more prominent in this as well, which I rather liked. It could be that this was just really fresh and you can detect the baked flavor of the wafers more when they're new off the manufacturing line.

This was good. I could see buying it again, but I'd caution people who are interested in it that they really have to like instant coffee and the level of bitterness of weak coffee in general. Since I'm a coffee sissy and can't take it black, the way in which the strong flavors were muted was appealing to me. All the being said, I liked the Espresso KitKat better because of the salty hit it had and this bar was on the edge of getting an "indifferent" rating and a "happy" one. I'd never turn this down if I got it for free and I enjoyed it, but it's not a slam dunk as a repeat purchase.

Kabaya Jersey Milk Candy

I grew up around cows, and I always thought they were cute. To this day, seeing the image of a cow warms my heart a little bit. I just realized that, if I were a former farm boy instead of a woman, that last line would seem mighty creepy. Trust me when I say that I never had an inappropriate relationships with a bovine, unless you consider the one my family had as a pet until my parents sent her off to become a freezer full of steaks and burgers. (Yes, I cried.)


There are a lot of "milk" flavor treats in Japan. I'm never sure what they're supposed to taste like, and some of them don't seem to taste like anything, but when I unwrapped one of these candies, I knew by the color what it was going to taste like. The candy tastes like sweetened condensed milk. It isn't creamy, chewy, or silky despite having cream powder and cream cheese and boasting a content of 8.5% milk. It is nice hard candy though which you can suck on for awhile and fill your mouth with the flavor of the type of sweet condensed milk that you can buy in tubes in Japanese markets and squeeze on strawberries.

There are 26 candies (at 20 calories per candy) in the bag and I found it for 98 yen (about a dollar). In fact, the price was one of the biggest reasons that I decided to sample these. Normally, I'm not really drawn to this sort of thing, but I thought "what the heck" when I noticed how cheap it was. I was really on the fence with my rating on this, but not because it isn't well-made or enjoyable. "Happy" ratings are reserved for things which I think I'll buy again, and I'm not sure I'd buy this again because I'm just not a huge fan of condensed milk. However, if I were, I'd certainly get these again.

Aero Hotto (Hot) Milk

The Aero bar is Nestlé Japan's lesser loved child. Of course, daddy's favorite is the oft-manipulated KitKat. The original Aero is a chocolate coated bar of aerated chocolate. This variation is pretty much the same bubble-filled bar with white stuff inside instead of brown stuff.


Nobody has taken notice, but the Aero has seen quite a few flavor variations as well. They have included banana, melon, peach, green tea, strawberry, tropical fruit, and lemon soda. No, I didn't notice these flavors in the shops. I had to look it up on Japanese Wikipedia.


In some world where my anthropomorphized fantasies about candy bars have become a bizarre reality, I'm sure the Aero has intense sibling rivalry with the Japanese KitKat. They probably fight over lollipop girlfriends and compete for their parent company's affection.


At any rate, all of this fanciful writing is a cover for the fact that this is one boring bar so there is little to say about it. It comes in a box with two individually wrapped bars at 113 calories per little bar. It smells like cocoa, is quite sweet, rather milky, soft, and very melty. The big point of the Aero bar is that the bubbles are supposed to melt in your mouth and you can feel them. I can't feel them, but it does seem like the chocolate disappears super fast with all of that air in there.

This is a nice enough, if somewhat sweet and pedestrian bar, but it tastes just like plain Japanese milk chocolate with a bit of an acidic aftertaste. The hotto (hot) milk portion doesn't seem to do anything at all for it. It's utterly unremarkable except for the fact that it is airy. I guess that's why Japanese KitKat variations attract so much more attention than Japanese Aero variations. Sometimes Mom and Dad have a favorite for a good reason.