Tirol Air-In Salty Vanilla チロル 塩バニラ

After coming to Japan I have been browing the aisles of supermarkets to find new and different Tirol flavours. I have not had much luck so far, only finding the regular coffee flavour.

At Jusco a few days ago, I finally found this flavour for ¥20. I originally grabbed two of them but lost one on the way home, only to find it in a friends car two days later, it had melted in the heat and lost its shape.

The image on the packet is of a sparkling blue ocean with a small island in the background and a soft serve cone in the foreground. I am not sure why the soft serve is in the image, but after googling "soft serve salty vanilla" I found a few links to icecream with a salty topping in Hakata, so maybe thats a kind of regional specialty.

This chocolate is air-in which basically means its like an Aero, it is aerated, very soft, and less dense.

From the outside, the chocolate smells of vanilla and a saltiness like the beach (cue blue water on image). The chocolate is quite soft to bite into and feels really grainy. Its really white chocolate, with a hint of vanilla, and after all the chocolate has melted, a few grains of salt.

The air-in makes the middle soft, and like mousse, and as I eat more, the salt flavour builds up, to a kind of sour vinegar like when you get a mouthful of water at the beach, that unpleasant taste in your mouth.

I never really got used to the grains in this chocolate, and I don't like the salt flavour because it's too strong. I have satisfied my curiousity and I definitely wont buy this again.

Sports Drink Kit Kat スポーツドリンク味キットカット

This Kit Kat was launched to support Asian Soccer and is sponsored by the JFA. On the back of the box it explains about how playing soccer makes kids bright and healthy and gives them dreams to aim for.

That explains why the flavour is Sports Drink, though exactly which sports drink we don't know. The back of the packet states that there is lemon powder and vitamin c contained in the chocolate.

The smell of this Kit Kat reminds me of rare cheesecake. It has a lemon-cheese scent.

When I bit into the Kit Kat I could taste the lemon immediately. There was a light lemon taste in the white chocolate, and bursts of sour lemon in the cream between the wafers. There seems to be a bitter taste at the base of my throat after eating this Kit Kat leading me to suspect there was grapefruit flavour in there, though I can't find it on the ingredient list, so maybe some chemical bitterness perhaps.

In all, I liked this Kit Kat, but not happy with the aftertaste. I probably wouldn't eat it again based solely on that. I don't think it's anything very special at least, and doesn't even remind me of a sports drink to be honest.

Apple Vinegar Kit Kat

I got this at the same time as the Lemon Vinegar Kit Kat, in a box of goodies from Japan.

Apple Vinegar has well known healing properties, probably mostly from Chinese medicine. It can shrink gall stones, it is a digestive enzyme (aids digestion), it can be put on burns - when applied reduces the burn and scarring, helps reduce cellulite appearance, helps allergies, and stomach flu, and probably many more!

Is it any wonder then why the Japanese followed China's lead and now regularly consume this on a daily basis? Yasu has this every day as a general health tonic, and as a consequence, he is always healthy, and hasn't had a cold for 6 months, ever since he started taking it.

Some people find the taste of Apple Vinegar to be too sour, but I love it. I think the Apple flavour is much more pronounced when mixed with vinegar.

So imagine my delight when I found that Nestle Japan had released Apple Vinegar Kit Kat!

It comes in a box of 2 packets containing 2 fingers. The chocolate is white but with a yellow tint. The yummy smell of red apple wafted up to my nose as I opened the packet.

The chocolate itself is a bit salty, then sweet, followed by the apple cream in the wafers. The outside of the wafers is where the vinegar is. It is not overly sour, it's more like a Granny Smith Apple, than vinegar. The vinegar is present only at the very end, followed by a creamy milky taste, which is really refreshing.

I wish I had got more of these. Yasu really loved it too. I love the white chocolate with the apple and vinegar, the sweet and sour are really great flavours combined.

I've heard alot of reviewers on the net giving this the thumbs down, but I am giving it a huge thumbs up. The problem is that they are not familiar with the original taste of apple vinegar, so they are reviewing something that is totally alien to their tastebuds. If you can't imagine the real thing, it's going to be hard to compare.

Tirol Assorted

I thought I better finish off reveiwing the bag of assorted Tirol chocolates I have so here goes.

White & Cookie Crunch
Smells very creamy and looks like it's filled to the brim with cookie. The white chocolate is sweet but not overly so as the cookie is the main flavour that shines through. Lots of crunch on this chocolate, really nice

Milk (with rare cream)
I expected it to be white chocolate to be honest, so was surprised when I opened it and there was milk chocolate. Biting into it I realised the milk is in the centre, as a creamy filling. The chocolate is a little bit bitter, like dark chocolate, but is offset by the creamy rare milk centre, which is like a paste. Quite nice, and the two flavours match each other perfectly.


BIS Milk Choc
This comes in two wrapper colours, pink, and blue. They are both the same chocolates inside however. The "BIS" is short for biscuit. The chocolate coating is slightly darker than regular milk chocolate and has that cocoa flavour. The biscuit inside is just a plain biscuit. There is more chocolate here than biscuit and right at the end, the last bite there is a sweet and bitter flavour from the chocolate. I'm not really a fan, maybe because it's just too plain.


Tirol Chocolate aka Coffee Nougat
Yasu told me that this one, and milk, were the only flavours available when he was a kid. Back when they sold them for 5 Yen each. I thought this would be just a chocolate square because the wrapper says "Chocolate" but I was wrong. It has a coffee toffee-like substance which according to the back of the pack is coffee nougat in the centre! It's quite nice, the coffee is the main flavour in this one.


Out of all of these I would have to say that the White Cookie & Crunch, and Milk were my favourites. I was not really a fan of the BIS. The coffee is ok, but I don't like it in toffee form.

Chocoball Yoghurt

Image used from J-List
buy Chocoball here

This box of Yoghurt Chocoball was in Yasu's Easter gift bag and the last chocolate left. He told me he was waiting for me to review it so he could eat it! I had no idea until he told me tonight.

I have to say, I usually like Japanese yoghurt flavoured items but these chocoballs were way off the mark.

The outside is coated in a very thin layer of white chocolate, which is nice and creamy, but way too thin. The inside is a round ball of sherbet. It is quite sharp and sour, and after sucking the chocolate off the outside, is quite a nasty surprise.

Exactly where in this chocoball the "yoghurt" is I have no idea. There is no yoghurt flavour in the sherbet, it's just plain sherbet.

I have to give a big thumbs down to the crew at Morinaga, what were they thinking? Were they drunk when they came up with this? How can you put white chocolate + sherbet together and come up with yoghurt?

Tirol Strawberry Shortcake

This little chocolat permeated the whole bag of Tirol chocolates in the variety pack. There were more of these (x6) than any other flavour.

Even while I was typing this post, the chocolate that is sitting on the dining table can be smelled from 2 metres away. Now that's strong!

The packaging is cute and has a little clip art like image of a shortcake on the front. The chocolate itself is 2-toned. White chocolate on the top and strawberry chocolate below.

Biting into this chocolate reveals a biscuit centre. I'm a big fan of strawberry chocolate and I really like this. There is the creamy milky flavour of the white chocolate and the tart strawberry underneath. When eaten together they mix and create a really nice taste in my mouth, topped off with a crunch. The ending is a slightly sour strawberry flavour but it's not too sour and delivers a very nice finish.

I'm really glad there are 6 of these in the pack!!

Meiji White Chocolate

This bar was part of Yasu's Easter gift and he generously shared it with me for a review.

At the regular price of $3.99 this is not very good value. I'm guessing its double the price it would retail for in Japan (about 198 yen).

The bar is very flat, .5 cm high. The bar is portioned into small rectangles that are easy to break off and have the word Meiji stamped onto them.


This chocolate smells like Vanilla with a hint of creaminess. It melts very easily, that could be though because it's so thin.

The first taste is vanilla, and then an almost buttery flavour, followed by a bit of saltiness. After that it gets sweet, but ends on a salty note.

This chocolate is good in that it doesn't have that throat-burning sweetness that alot of white chocolate has. I also like the vanilla and salt notes, they are evenly balanced and don't take over.

I would buy this again for a treat. I definitely recommend it to those who stay away from white chocolate because of its sweetness.

Chocoball Salt Vanilla チョコボール 塩バニラ

This small box of Chocoball was a part of a giftbag of Easter chocolate I gave to Yasu this year. As Yasu loves white chocolate and Chocoball in general, I didn't hesitate in buying this at the Japanese supermarket for $2.00. It is a little bit more expensive than normal but I figured it may turn out to be a very interesting flavour.

First Nestle Japan ran the salty chocolate theme with their French Rock Salt & White Chocolate Kit Kat around the middle of last year, now many other Japanese sweets are jumping on the bandwagon, the latest to be Chocoball.

Unfortunately, my high expectations were not met. The balls themselves are small, round, and quite glossy, like they have been given a polishing before being inserted into the box. The box smells creamy and sweet but the outside of the ball tastes like nothing. I could have been sucking on a marble, the texture and taste was probably the same. (I say that because I can't remember sucking on a marble, but if I were to suck on one I would expect it to be the same as this).

When the gloss melted away the chocolate emerged mildly creamy and vaguely sweet. It didn't have that super sweet white chocolate taste that I expected. The ball inside was very malty and did not really have a lot of salt. You get more salt flavour if you crunch down on the ball rather than sucking off the coating.

All in all this was a big disappointment for me. Neither of the two flavours shone through, and it was like an effort in mildness. If you want to enjoy white chocolate without the screaming sweetness and you love a bit of malt then this Chocoball would be for you.

Yasu was happy with it, but I suspect if it had white chocolate on the outside and worms on the inside he would still be happy with it. No matter how lame it is, if it's white chocolate, he's there.

I do love my white chocolate and I would rather have throat-burning sweet than no taste at all.

あじわい苺 Strawberry Flavour Kit Kat

Ajiwai Ichigo simply means "the flavour of strawberry", ajiwai being flavour, and ichigo being strawberry.

I have seen a few incarnations of this bar, I think Nestle Japan release one every year. Most probably for those pink chocolate lovers out there.

The box is very pretty and so are the two little packets inside that contain the fingers. They have strawberries on a white background, very cute and sweet. It could have almost been a late Valentine's present.

The chocolate is very fake pink white chocolate, and there is a lovely smell of strawberry milk. I love the smell. However when I bit into the bar I got a very fake strawberry taste followed by a very sour ending. Yasu can't taste or smell anything, but he had a bit of this and said "something tastes sour!" so even with no taste he could taste that sourness. That's how strong it is!

I don't like this Kit Kat at all. It lacks depth of flavour and originality. I would have preferred it without the sourness. Strawberries don't really have that amount of sourness unless they're unripe. I don't think the Nestle team have put much thought into this Kit Kat, and I am disappointed. They did a lovely job with the presentation and packaging, how could they let us down with the flavour? I wouldn't buy it again. I like my Strawberries sweet and juicy.

大学いも Caramelized Sweet Potato Kit Kat

Daigaku Imo is a kind of caramelized sweet potato that is made by coating deep fried potatoes with syrup and soy sauce. The direct translation of the name "university potato" came about because it was popular in college towns during the Taisho (1912-1926) and Showa (1926-1989) period.



Right away I could smell the sweetness in this Kit Kat. The colour of the chocolate is a mix of yellow and orange, kind of halfway between (although it looks different in the photo). I really liked the smell of this bar. The first bite tasted like sweet caramel with a very faint undertaste of sweet potato. This sweet potato did not strike me as very full flavoured. It could have almost been a pumpkin, as it had that same kind of orange flesh taste. I found it sweet but not too sweet, and almost a musky taste of potato. I couldn't detect any soy sauce flavour, although it was a pleasant taste.

This Kit Kat is not a favourite of mine, the flavour lacks depth, and mostly the caramel shines through. I would like to see a sweet potato Kit Kat where the potato is the star. All in all, nice to try, but as I said not a favourite. I'm sure Yasu will beg to differ when he tries it (he's sick with a cold at the moment and can't taste or smell anything so I had to taste test on my own). I have seen quite a few reviews around the internet that say this is one of the best flavours, so I know this bar has its fans.

焼きもろこしと北海道じゃがいも Roasted Corn & Hokkaido Potato Kit Kat Mini's

I bought these two Kit Kat mini bars on ebay (with a few others like Yuzu and Daigaku Imo). These mini bars are regional releases, so they are not available everywhere, and they come in a box of 12 mini's for US $19.99 on ebay, I'm not sure what the regular price of these are in yen, only that they would be less as the seller makes a profit on these. Each mini with 2 small fingers amounts to one regular size finger, so if you buy a box of these you are getting the equivalent of 4 regular boxes of Kit Kat. I would say these are more premium than the average Kit Kat, especially at that price! But for taste? Let's see...

Roasted Corn 焼きもろこし

Upon opening the wrapper I got a very strong cream stew smell. Sort of like sniffing the blocks of cream stew before putting them into the pot. The chocolate was a light yellow coloured white chocolate. First bite revealed a very sweet flavour followed by more of the cream stew flavour. There was a very faint taste of canned corn kernels but overall it was like cream stew with lots of sugar, not really a great combination.






Hokkaido Potato 北海道じゃがいも

When I opened the wrapper I was struck by how artificially white the chocolate was. I guess it was made to look like a potato without skin. The smell was like that of a raw potato just after peeling one. There was a vague smell of potato chips from a packet. As I bit into it there was a huge rush of sweetness, and aftertaste of salt. A bit more into the bar and I could detect a very faint taste of potato, but mostly it was covered by the sweetness and salt. This was very weird! I expected a full-on potato flavour but this was like a flavourless potato covered in sugar and salt.


Neither of these bars met my expectations. What is with that sweetness in both of them? I can understand that corn can be sweet but not like it has been rolled in sugar. Both of these mini bars had very little of the flavour in them that they were represented by. A great let down, and I'm really glad that I didn't buy the boxes of them, that would be a total waste of money. It just goes to show that premium is not always better in this case.