{"id":857,"date":"2013-01-14T11:00:34","date_gmt":"2013-01-14T16:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oyatsubreak.com\/?p=857"},"modified":"2013-01-14T11:01:02","modified_gmt":"2013-01-14T16:01:02","slug":"review-kit-kat-gran-wafer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oyatsubreak.com\/?p=857","title":{"rendered":"Review: Kit Kat Gran Wafer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"OLYMPUS<\/a>Kit Kat Gran Wafer
\nPurchased: October 2012
\nBest Before: July 2013
\nReview: January 2013
\nManufactured by Nestle Japan<\/b><\/p>\n

http:\/\/nestle.jp\/brand\/kit\/<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/nestle.jp\/brand\/kit\/gw\/<\/a><\/p>\n

You know you\u2019ve got great friends when they e-mail you from Japan to go \u201cHey I just got here and there\u2019s a new kind of Kit Kat called \u2018Gran Wafer\u2019, want me to grab it for you?\u201d<\/p>\n

The answer of course is yes. It is always yes. The awesome person is Jocelyne Allen, and you can read more about her at her literary review website http:\/\/brainvsbook.wordpress.com\/<\/a> (lots of manga and Japanese culture there too!).<\/p>\n

I didn’t see Gran Wafer very often on my November trip, but it was notably found on the top shelf, with only one or two boxes remaining at any given time. Good placement for this product, I think.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Packaging: <\/b>Released in special packaging that recalls some of the stranger and more upscale flavours such as \u201cCheese\u201d and the \u2018Air-In\u2019 Kit Kats, the Gran Wafer <\/i>box is a pretty remarkable piece of packaging, and is probably the most ornate yet. Consisting of a fairly large box with 10 single-stick individually wrapped Kit Kats, the package\u2019s fairly prominent mention of only 26 calories identifies this snack as being for the calorie-conscious eater. In addition, \u201cGran Wafer\u201d is spelled out on the box in romaji (English), with a katakana translation underneath, and prominent English packaging is a general hallmark of \u201cmodern and sophisticated\u201d in candy packaging design.<\/p>\n

The printing on the packaging is simply phenomenal, possibly the nicest I\u2019ve seen for a mass-market snack. Extremely hi-resolution images of the Kit Kats are printed with a matte finish on four sides giving a luxurious feel, and every side<\/i> of the box features spot gloss accents on the Kit Kat logo and the product image, making it pop! But if you want your product to leap off of the shelves, you need foil stamping, and the GRAN WAFER logo is stamped with a standard gold foil too, which would be the height of luxury\u2026 if there weren\u2019t another <\/i>type of foil stamping on the box as well! Yes the intricately-patterned textured gold foil diamond on this box pushes it over the top, as the fold foil diamond seems to exist simply to extol the surprising crunchiness of this product. Amazing.<\/p>\n

The box then opens from the back, and up, and is nominally resealable indicating that this is not a single-serving portion of Kit Kat, much like the treasure-chest themed \u2018cheese kit kat\u2019 container. The back of the box then contains still more <\/i>glamour (heh), as we learn that this Kit Kat featured an entirely new way of opening your Kit Kat packaging<\/i>, involving snapping the package apart at the middle.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve written 3 paragraphs about this before I got to the actual Kit Kat. Can you tell I was impressed?<\/p>\n

So, we\u2019re finally greeted with a single Kit Kat stick, wrapped in a shiny gold foil package (complete with the \u201cWow it\u2019s Crunchy!\u201d diamond), and pictographic instructions printed on the back detailing how to open these new Kit Kats. Step 1: \u201chineru\u201d or twist. Step 2: \u201chibbaru\u201d or pull informally. Seriously Google translate said \u201cinformal pull\u201d which is awesome. Anyway, maybe I am a dullard, but despite direct instructions it took me 3 or 4 tried to actually get the pulling-apart correct. There are apparently micro-perforations that make it easy to twist and tear the packaging, but if you don\u2019t find one of those, well, you may freak out a little. Anyway, we\u2019re all good now, I\u2019ve become a master at getting into these new Kit Kats, so I can tell you what they\u2019re all about\u2026!<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/a><\/p>\n

Scent and Taste: <\/b>The strongest scent is of cocoa, which is a first in my Kit Kat experience. Even the \u201cmature\u201d dark chocolate Kit Kats didn\u2019t have a scent that reminded me of straight-up hot cocoa, and this does. It\u2019s really pleasant.<\/p>\n

This is a unique Kit Kat in that it\u2019s the first I\u2019ve ever tried without <\/i>an outer shell of chocolate. It\u2019s just wafers held together by a chocolate filling, and so my first thought was that the texture was wrong. I mean, not \u2018wrong\u2019 wrong, just, not a Kit Kat. It\u2019s like the cheap wafer-cookies that you\u2019d get at the supermarket. That surprise was followed by another\u2014the wafers here are chocolate flavoured and coloured chocolate brown, which is another Kit Kat first for me as usually the wafers are just a standard sort of \u2018cookie\u2019 flavour, though honestly they have almost no flavour at all. These tasted alright, not spectacular, but it was nice to get a little something extra. All this before the first bite.<\/p>\n

And that first bite? Excellent. It continued the cocoa flavours I\u2019d smelled, and was really rich and delicious. Better still, it wasn\u2019t even close to as sweet as your average Kit Kat, perhaps even less sweet than the \u201cAdult\u201d bars. The bar is also much denser than your average Kit Kat\u2014delivering on its promise of surprising crunchiness, sure, but also delivering a surprisingly satisfying little bite.<\/p>\n

Verdict: <\/b>This is a real success, and it shows that Nestle are finally spreading their wings a little after playing it safe for a few years. This is a mature, complicated flavour, featuring unique textures and with quality, tasty ingredients. I honestly didn\u2019t have high hopes after being so disappointed with their other calorie-conscious offerings, but this was pretty great. It could be argued that chocolate is a safe choice, and a variation on chocolate will be an easy sale\u2026 and that\u2019s totally fair. This isn\u2019t going to blow anyone\u2019s mind the way that Pancake Kit Kats did, for example, but this is a pretty big departure for the standard Kit Kat, and I\u2019m pretty excited about it. Thanks Nestle!<\/p>\n

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