February 18th: Kit Kat Royal Milk Tea

Kcal 100 Fat 5.8g Carbs 11.3g (per two fingers)

It is always an exciting moment when I get a new package in the post from Japan as I never quite know what weird and wonderful samples J-List have sent my way. Having tried many Kit Kat flavours recently that have had a Far East twist such as the Kit Kat Kinako Ohagi and Kit Kat Sweet Potatoe etc I was surprised to see this Royal Milk Tea flavour gracing my latest selection and looking at the pictures of the red uniformed guards decorating the outer box it was straight away obvious that this was a British themed novelty flavour for the Far East market. Whereas some might think it suitable to launch into a tirade at us Brits being stereotyped I simply can't do this after hearing this fact last week ... 'if the rest of the world drank as much tea as the British, global consumption of tea would increase ten times' ... Wow!

Getting back to matters at hand I can tell you that this Kit Kat came in a 36.0g pack that included two separately foil wrapped double Kit Kat fingers. Decorated with red tartan cloth patterns and pictures of milky tea in a china cup I felt right at home here with the packaging and similarly thought that the inner blue foil wrappers looked smart. Unwrapping the first double finger packet the first thing I was surprised to see was that the Kit Kats donned white chocolate and not the expected milk chocolate coating that I am so accustomed to. Putting that initial observation aside the next thing that became apparent was lack of forthcoming aromas from the product. At this point I dug my nose right up and immediately wished I hadn't and I was greeted with some pretty unappetising warm milk scents - at this point I was just hoping it was going to taste better than it smelt.

Despite the smells hardly igniting my enthusiasm I immediatedly went about eating this ... after I had poured myself a cup of tea to accompany it of course :D Taking my first bite into the finger I was met with the usual combination of the crisp outer chocolate and crunchy inner wafer but this is where any sort familiarity ended. The taste was nothing like I have ever tasted before and was far far different to what I had expected. Personally I take my tea with a dash of milk and no sugar, conversely if this Kit Kat is anything to go by the Japanese think tea is best served with a gallon of milk and a couple bowls of sugar - it was insanely, and I mean INSANELY sweet. Amongst the taste that was dominated by the raw white sugar edge there were some pleasant undertones of earl grey which established a floral like background tones but frankly the milky sweetness overbeared both the chocolate and the wafer. In a single sitting the most I could eat was a double finger portion and even then I could feel the back of my throat beginning to tingle with that nasty burning sensation.

Overall I think this was a sound idea for a Kit Kat but unfortunately the execution was pretty flawed to say the least. As you will have read above the taste wasn't anything too untoward or disgusting but it was disappointing that the Japanese chose to overload the chocolate with a ridiculous amount of sugar as I felt spoilt the decent tea flavours that were present in and amongst all the sugaryness. I don't like criticising products without suggesting ways that manufacturers could make them better and if I was to offer my two cents to Nestle I think that this would have been a flavour far more suited for a milk chocolate coating as perhaps it was just the white chocolate that tipped this over in to sweetness overload. Looking at some of the Kit Kat flavours in my sample box this time I think a few of them certainly have the potential to outshine this Royal Milk Tea flavour. Being British I should know a good tea product when I taste one - this unfortunately didn't make the grade.

6.0 out of 10