Green KitKats of happiness

I have recently been gifted macha mini KitKats through our local Buy Nothing group.

If you are not aware, Buy Nothing is a wonderful project that aims at connecting small communities, ideally neighbourhoods, by setting up local gift economies and encouraging members to ˝commit episodic acts of daily good˝. Gifting your time, help and items, while getting to know the receiver is what the group is all about. Post of gratitude are highly encouraged and many times gifting and meeting in person sparks new friendships. I’ve got toys for my children and kefir grains, among other things, off of the group. Naturally, I have also gifted a few items myself, sometimes discovering that the giftee was actually somebody I had crossed paths with already, like the mother of my son’s classmate.

So despite being involved in the project is nothing unusual, the post offering green KitKats made my heart beat faster. As you can see, although it has gotten better as I became older and wiser, my sugar addiction is still going pretty strong.

nce the sweets were awarded to yours truly, I hopped into my jacket and winter boots and off I went to collect my gift. The lady was super nice, explaining that the KitKats were a gift from friends who had recently visited Hong Kong; what made them even more special was the fact they are not available in Europe. All perks of living in a country with over 170 different nationalities (STATEC figures on 1^st February 2011) who are used to travelling and moving a lot. However, her husband didn’t like the taste, as for her, the sweets were too sweet. Therefore, I supposed they would be perfect for me – there’s no such thing as too sweet, right?

I brought them home, put them in the cupboard for later and after feeding three children, bringing one safely back home and putting the other two to bed for the night, it was time to taste my new acquisition. We shook the KitKats out of the bag and examined them closely.

They looked utterly foreign. Not only because, except for the numbers, everything was pretty much Greek to us. There was also the memorable green colour of the packaging; the most remarkable feature, however, was the space left on each mini KitKat for a note to whoever you’d be gifting them. Have you ever seen anything more thoughtful on a chocolate?

I smelled them first, then decided to taste one. Marko, very courageously, went straight for the bite. The sweetness WAS on a whole other level, which put Marko off any more tasting and meant there was more left for me!

The bar had all the classic elements – three layers of crispy wafer, separated and coated with chocolate and a bar separated into fingers. The texture of the coating, however, wasn’t smooth as with the classic KitKats but pleasantly granulates, owing it to the addition of macha powder, I guess. Talking about the star ingredient, there was a whiff and a faint taste of macha, which still left plenty of space for the white chocolate this KitKat is actually covered by.

Afterwards I embarked on a little research and found out that the macha KitKats are originally from Japan, where for a certain period of time KitKat pizzas were available. Over the years, there were over 120 different KitKat flavours, not all of them available around the world but most of them are or were available in Japan, even the savoury options such as purple sweet potato and variants made especially for baking.

To sum it up, I am not sure the green KitKats could become my new favourite sweet but I did like it – all the excitement of going to pick it up and waiting to taste it was definitely not for nothing!

Till next time!