Sugar Savvy

I tried four new varieties of Kit Kat recently and was very surprised with three of them. Beginning with the one that surprised me not-at-all, Kit Kat Banana was exactly as I expected it would be…horrible. Once again the old culprit of artificial flavour reared its ugly head and despite my certainty that I wouldn’t like it, I bought it anyway for the purposes of this article. For some reason, banana seems to be the worst flavour to artificially copy. No matter what banana treat I am presented with, if they haven’t sacrificed an actual fruit, it’s not for me. The wafer in Kit Kat Banana was loaded with the stomach-flipping faux-fruit. When I opened the package I practically threw the bar at Michelle, the overwhelming and familiar smell of copy couldn’t get away from my nose fast enough. That having been said, in the name of research, I still ate one stick. Michelle and Jay ate the rest and were unimpressed as well. Thankfully we had other things to eat.

I was actually excited about trying the Kit Kat Dark. I had such a good experience with the Dark versions of Caramilk and Cadbury Mini Eggs, that I fully expected Kit Kat Dark to be the same. In that, however, I was very disappointed. Smelling the bar before we tried it was possibly a mistake. Michelle said it reminded her of pipe tobacco, it had a deep, musty, unchocolatey scent. Undeterred, we all took a bite. I was expecting it to be much more bitter, given the smell, but really, it just tasted boring. There was no dynamic between the dark chocolate and the sweetness of the wafer, it just seemed thrown together. The dark chocolate itself reminded me of my childhood dislike for Italian Easter Egg chocolate. I will not bother with this one again.

The third new Kit Kat bar, Kit Kat Xtra Chocolate, I fully expected to be in the ‘not for me’ category. Although I eat chocolate and enjoy it, I wouldn’t consider myself in the group of people who love it. I don’t care for chocolate flavoured things as a rule, cake or ice cream for instance, and usually hate the double or triple choclating of things. (Brand new word, chocolating. Tell your friends.) In this case however, it turned out to be no big deal. Kit Kat Xtra Chocolate has a chocolate wafer in addition to the milk chocolate outside. Michelle noticed the wafer taste more than I did. To me, it was too subtle to really differentiate it from a regular Kit Kat. And without a plain one nearby to compare, I’ll just have to say I liked this bar and leave it at that.

Funny enough, the two people who shared the Kit Kat Dark and Kit Kat Xtra Chocolate with Michelle and I felt just the opposite. Jay and our friend Hilary liked the Dark one much better than the Xtra.

The last Kit Kat surprise concerned a gift I bought for my friend, Dave, from our local British goods shop. Kit Kat Mint, due to my personal dislike of mint and chocolate together, is something I would usually never consider putting in my mouth. Dave was thrilled with the gift and tore into them immediately, letting Michelle, Jay and I have a try. To my absolute shock, it was the best of the bunch. The mint wasn’t overwhelming at all, being well balanced by the wafer. All the flavours blended well together and I was sad that I hadn’t purchased a package for myself. And speaking of packaging, I got 10 two-stick bars in a package for $2.00! What a deal! Also, the words ‘break starts here’ were printed on the chocolate itself. Cute.

So what have I learned as I tell a tale of Kit Kats? Firstly, some things never die. Artificial banana is the worst of all the artificial flavours and I need to avoid it, forever. Secondly, my tastes are changing. As I head toward 40, I find more and more that things I used to hate deserve a second chance. And whether I end up agreeing with my younger self or not, at least I’m certain of why.