by | July 3, 2011

Review: “Ramune Blueberry Flavour”

Ramune Blueberry Flavour (Distributed by CTC Food International Inc., Daiei Trading Co., Inc.)
Purchased: Fall 2010
Best Before: —
Review: March 2011

As I mentioned in my Banana Kit Kat Bar review, one of my favourite artificial flavours is fake banana, and sure, that’s weird, but you probably have a favourite artificial flavour too, if you think about it. Well my top favourite artificial flavour? Blueberry. I love that stuff. Thinking back I probably love it as much as I do because it was so rare growing up. Boo Berry made verrrrry infrequent appearances in our cereal aisle, and yet was constantly available on the American television commercials beamed into our TV Sets Saturday morning. Blueberry gum, blueberry candy, it’d get a big introduction and then fade from the stores almost immediately. And the worst part? Real blueberries tasted NOTHING like artificial blueberry. How disheartening! Blueberry yogurt was passable, but if you wanted that insanely sweet hit of Boo Berry Blueberry goodness, your fixes were few and far between. And so when Asian Food Grocer had a blueberry Ramune drink available for purchase? That got dropped right into my shopping cart.

Packaging: I probably should have reconsidered buying this at all. The packaging is a little terrifying. The bottle is under-designed, a Japanese-manufactured bottle with an English-language label poorly applied. There are no brand names on this bottle, anywhere. No copyright information. Literally no one to take responsibility for this drink should it kill me–just a variety of distributor names that may or may not be the same organization. The only reason I might normally go ahead and try it is the charming Engrish on the bottle—“FOR EVEN MORE DELICIOUS THIS DRINK CHILL BEFORE DRINKING”—and the fact that it’s blueberry, and I will try artificial blueberry anything.

Oh, also? Bright blue. 2000 Flushes blue. Normally not a problem for me, but in this instance it did give me pause.

I will say that the classic Ramune bottle is intact, complete with marble, narrow neck, and plastic mouth piece. Also bright blue.

Smell: Popping the marble out, it doesn’t really smell anything like blueberries—real or artificial. It does smell a lot like standard ramune pop though.

Taste: It tastes like slightly syrupier, slightly flatter ramune. I can’t get detect anything blueberry flavour in this thing.

I poured it into a larger glass and let it warm up a bit to see if the cold and method of drinking were affecting where it was hitting my tongue. At room temperature I was able to taste something approaching an artificial blueberry flavour, but it could just be the drink playing tricks on me as well. It tastes like off-brand ramune pop, which it is I guess. It made me very glad I opted to just get one bottle to try out, rather than a bunch…

Verdict: Horribly disappointed. If you ever see some random soda-pop on the shelf with no copyright information, no brand name, and it looks like 2000 flushes? Well don’t you buy that product, mister, even if it has chibi blueberries on it.

Especially if it has chibi blueberries on it.

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by | July 3, 2011

Review: Banana Kit Kat Bar (Chunky)

Kit Kat – Banana Bar
Purchased: May 2010
Best Before: November 2010
Review: March 2011

One of the hazards of running a snack review blog is the inherent limit on how much you can write in a given time: i.e.: when you get sick of eating ridiculous, overly sweet “Chocolate” bars and soda-pop. I actually had to take a two day break between Banana Bar and Green Tea Bar because I’d gotten sick of white chocolate. I have to admit, I don’t have the world’s biggest sweet tooth—I’m much more of a salty snacks guy. But there are a couple of artificial flavour concoctions that shoot to the top of my list, and fake Banana is one of them. Maybe it comes from the penicillin I was given as a kid that tastes like liquefied banana (chalky though!), or the awesome banana milkshakes my best friends would make at sleepovers, but Banana-flavoured-anything is right up there in my top sickly-sweet artificial flavours, and let me tell you, Kit Kat Banana Bar delivers.

Packaging: Another winner in the Kit Kat Bar category. Clear, bold, English lettering for Banana, and a good photograph of a Banana on the outside—it also takes time to show that the bar inside is bright yellow!

Smell: Purchased on my Spring 2009 trip and techinically “expired” before my tasting in March 2011, the scent of the bar leapt out at me as soon as I cracked the wrapper, over a foot away. There is no mistaking what this is going to taste like.

Taste: Heaven! If you like fake banana flavour. If you don’t it’s probably some sort of abomination. It has all the problems of the white chocolate Kit Kat bars in that it’s too sweet and the ratio of chocolate to wafer is off, with the chocolate fairly-coating the inside of your mouth. It actually surpasses artificial banana taste and starts to approach what a real banana tastes like, when you’ve got a mouthful of it… the texture and balance is also better then too, with the wafers diffusing the biggest flavours. But the intense scent and sweetness will quickly dispel any claims to authenticity.

Verdict: It is exactly what it promises on the wrapper and I found it enjoyable, I’d probably grab one from the convenience store if some exciting new snack didn’t catch my eye. My husband on the other hand was entirely grossed out by it.

Kit Kat has produced 4 or 5 variations of Banana Kit Kats at this point, periodically reintroducing the flavour because it either sells well or they’re happy with the formula they’ve come up with. I’m guessing both, because I bought several and loved it, and it seems like an easy flavour for the public to get behind. But if you’ve never liked Banana-flavoured foods, this certainly isn’t going to turn you around.

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by | July 3, 2011

Review: Mont Blanc Pepsi

Pepsi Mont Blanc
Purchased: November 2010
Best Before: May 2011
Review: March 2011

Lest you think that my fervour for Japanese confections only extends as far as unique flavours of Kit Kats, let me introduce you today to Pepsi Mont Blanc, the limited edition winter Pepsi introduced in fall 2010. Taking the same cues as sweet-potato-flavoured Kit Kats, Mont Blanc Pepsi attempts to hit the same sentimental, nostalgic winter notes, quite specifically with chestnuts in the style of the French Mont Blanc dessert. It’s just the latest in a string of headline-grabbing Japanese Pepsi flavours, including Cucumber, Shiso Leaf, and Blue Hawaii, amongst others. I’m going to spoil the surprise here: Pepsi Mont Blanc is delicious. If it were available regularly, it’d be my soda-pop of choice… in most situations…

Packaging: The package design is gorgeous. It looks sophisticated, going with a chocolatey brown and creamy white design that immediately sets it apart from garish soda packaging. The bottle actually has SPOT VARNISH on the snowflakes! The large clear areas show off the product inside, which is notably lighter than regular Pepsi or Coke… it actually looks like strong tea. The shape is great too, resting in the hand comfortably, easy to drink. Seriously, ideal packaging for this product. Top marks.

Smell: You won’t find out until you visit (or track down a really great importer), but Japanese pop bottles have a really intense POP when you crack the air-tight seal on the lid, it’s neat. Cracking the lid on Pepsi Mont Blanc, you’re immediately hit with the scent of vanilla, and actually pretty intense at that. It’s followed by an earthy smell, a sort of coffee/chestnut thing, and then the unmistakable Pepsi/Coke smell follows. It’s actually really pleasant mixed altogether, a good warmup for what the beverage will taste like.

Taste: Right away you notice how much less sweet Pepsi Mont Blanc is than regular Pepsi, which I find sickly sweet. There’s an earthy—almost bitter—coffee/chestnut flavour at the base, and really light vanilla and chocolate flavours all the way through. It’s still clearly a brown soda and that one-note Pepsi/Coke taste is in there, but it’s much smoother and more complex than any iteration of those sodas I’ve ever tried. It’s not unlike a Coffee Crisp, actually, if you’re familiar with that chocolate bar. But most importantly it’s really enjoyable. I probably drank 3 or 4 bottles of Pepsi Mont Blanc while I was in Japan, and I was on a mission to try as many different flavours of soda as possible. But it really is that good, and if it were available in Canada I’d drink it almost all the time… on its own. The problem, if it has any, is that it really is a complex range of sweet and bitter flavours all on its own, and I don’t think you could—or should—pair it with anything. Rather than grabbing a Pepsi and a slice of Pizza, you grab the slice of pizza, rinse with water, and then enjoy the Pepsi Mont Blanc for dessert. (The aftertaste isn’t bad, a touch metallic at the 10 minute point, but honestly you really should’ve brushed your teeth by then anyhow.)

Verdict: What started out in some marketing executive’s office hit the streets as a truly great, unique bottle of pop (Canadaism). I regret that I finished my last bottle doing this review.

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by | July 2, 2011

Welcome to Oyatsu Break!

Hi everyone! Welcome to OYATSU BREAK! My name is Christopher Butcher, and I’m the founder of this here blog. It’s about Japanese snacks, particularly the awesome range of uniquely flavoured Kit Kat bars that are available in Japan, and will include reviews, history, and news about these items. It’s a food “culture and review blog”, but really it’s just me having fun.

I wanted to find a way to give back to a country that has given me so much enjoyment through its culture, customs, and food. 100% of the proceeds of advertising revenue, donations, or other money raised through this site will be donated to various Japanese relief organizations, in support of recovery after the devastating March 11th eqarthquake and tsunami. The charities and organizations receiving this money will change periodically, so check the site design for info on who’s currently getting the donations.

While more than you wanted to know about me will be made available on the ‘about’ page, here’s a few quick tidbits of info about the site.

  • I’ve been to Japan 4 times now, for a total of about 6 weeks, and I’m always looking forward to going back. My current plan is a trip for the last week of October and the first week of November, 2011, but that’s not set in stone.
  • Unless otherwise stated, I wrote everything on the site. I also have a comics culture and industry blog at http://comics212.net with lots of fun stuff include extensive Japan Travelogues.
  • This site will update 3 times a week at the minimum, that’s my commitment to you. :)
  • The name “Oyatsu Break!” (including the exclamation point) comes from the Japanese word Oyatsu, or “Snack” basically. Oyatsu is generally a small snack between lunch and dinner, and from what I can tell it involves a drink (usually tea) and a savoury or sweet item including cookies, cakes, chocolates, etc. Oyatsu can be anything really, as long as its a light snack. Japan produces 10s of thousands of different snack foods every year, most of the ones for adults geared towards “Oyatsu”, or a nice excuse to take a break in the afternoon. The “BREAK!” part comes from the slogan for Kit Kats, which always include the word “Break,” as in “Take a Break–Have a Kit Kat!” or what have you.

Thanks for reading!

– Christopher Butcher, July 2nd 2011

 

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by | July 2, 2011

Review: Matcha Green Tea Kit Kat Bar (Chunky)

Kit Kat – Green Tea (matcha) BAR
Purchased: May 2010
Best Before: March 2011
Review Date: March 2011

There’s nothing quite like green tea. When it’s prepared right it’s calming, rich, and deep. It’s mellow, you know, but there’s so much more. Matcha is a specific kind of green tea, a finely ground or milled green tea, and it is often used to flavour mocha, noodles, and ice cream. It goes without saying that it is a very different experience to slowly sip a delicious cup of green tea than it is to eat a candy bar—they’re both good of course, but it’d take some sort of mad genius to try to combine the two. Luckily, there is the Nestle Corporation, and their Kit Kats, and so we have green tea Kit Kats. This was picked up on my May 2010 trip to Japan and the green tea Kit Kats were everywhere, in Bar and regular form.

Packaging: Great, like all of the Kit Kat bars. Big logo, a close-up illustration of the GREEN candy bar within (shocking!), and even a photograph of a cup of green tea, just in case you weren’t getting it.

Smell: It really, really smells like green tea. Right at the bottom there it smells like your typical sweet Kit Kat, but yeah, it smells great.

Taste: Right away you get a taste of the matcha on your tongue, but it’s like eating a Kit Kat made of green tea ice-cream, not actual green tea. I know, I know, it’s a difference so subtle it might even be non-existent, and it might just be a the taste and the texture working together, but it tastes like green tea ice cream and not a steaming cup of green tea, as the packaging might imply. It’s good though! It’s less sweet than most of the Kit Kats I’ve tried, but it still has the white chocolate/candy base that most of the special Kit Kats do, and it doesn’t 100% blend with the matcha flavour. I’ve had better green tea candy before, and I green tea mochi is a more delicious snack for sure.

Verdict: I’d probably grab one of these from the store if a new Kit Kat I hadn’t tried before wasn’t available, but I also might just grab a bag of chips too.

 

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