Ahh, Japan, the land of seasonal treats! The pumpkin, so revered by the Japanese as the quintessential autumn vegetable; it can be boiled, roasted, baked, steamed, and mashed up with pounds of sugar and turned into a seasonal candy!
I was recently in Japan, and a friend casually let it slide that pumpkin-flavored KitKats were available in stores, which of course then turned into a quest to find them. After searching through candy aisles at various convenience stores (amazing candy selection at Japanese convenience stores!) and supermarkets, I finally found them at, yes, a convenience store! The happy pumpkins on the package led me to believe these were for Halloween, which is not really celebrated in Japan, but hey, if there’s a chance to produce and market new goods, why not?
First, the aroma–the KitKat doesn’t smell particularly pumpkiny. It gives off a slightly fruity scent, kind of like how those raspberry-filled Russell Stover candies smell. I thought the KitKat might be orange in color, but it looks like an ordinary KitKat. One crunch in, and, well, it doesn’t really taste like pumpkin, either. It does have a less chocolately taste than a regular KitKat with perhaps a hint of uh, je ne sais quois. I find that the pumpkin-flavored KitKat is neither delicious nor repulsive. Maybe if I stare at a pumpkin while eating the KitKat, it will taste more like pumpkin?