Mixed juice featured on many cafe menus during our last trip to Japan. That’s not to say it became trendy in 2015, but that we had a firmer grasp on reading Japanese than on previous trips. But being able to read doesn’t mean we know what it means, so we left without trying the ‘mixed juices’ we saw on menus. It turns out it’s just a blend of different fruit juices, as is the case with this Nestlé KitKat Tōhoku Mixed Juice.
Released in December 2015, these KitKat consist of wafers sandwiching a sweet cream and enrobed in a white chocolate infused with a blend of fruit juices from the Tōhoku region: apples in Aomori prefecture, cherries in Yamagata prefecture, and peaches in Fukushima prefecture. The Tōhoku region, which was devastated by the earthquake and tsunami in 2011, is the focus of these KitKats as 10 yen from each box sold were donated towards reconstruction efforts in the region, specifically, planting cherry trees in the new Sakurasaku Baseball Stadium in Fukushima Prefecture scheduled for completion in 2016.
The KitKat has all the appearances of a strawberry KitKat but has distinct smells of apple and cherry. Upon tasting, the apple provides a gentle acidity, with the refreshing sweetness of white peach and a subtle sharpness from the cherry. As the chocolate melts to a creamy consistency, an aftertaste of faint cherry is left on the palate. The cherry flavour was much like that in the cherry flavour Starbursts toned down dramatically to be very enjoyable. The sandwiching cream was sweet without any identifiably fruity notes – perhaps they really did use crushed up KitKats in true KitKat style? – and the overall flavour of the KitKat was rather simple throughout the bite without any transition of flavours in stark contrast to the complexity of flavours in the Nestlé KitKat Citrus Golden Blend.
This Nestlé KitKat Tōhoku Mix Juice contained 3 mini bars. It was produced in Japan and purchased in Kyōto, Japan in 2015.