it's Spring and that means 桜 season~

Cherry blossom season has come and gone and I magically managed to miss all of the hanami parties that my friends and co-workers had.  Not too big of a deal really, to be perfectly honest the crowded parks get on my nerves a little.

fruit by the foot?

HOWEVER, as it is beautiful, lovely Spring here in Osaka, I will share some sakura themed sweets I picked up.


First up is the Sakuranbo and Peach flavored soda.
This is some  weird, fruit soda line by Sapporo that I have only ever found in Family Mart.  All of the flavors are very distinct in that they do not taste like what they're supposed to.  さくらんぼ translates to cherry (but in the edible sense) so I suppose this soda has one up on all of the vague 桜 (cherry tree) flavored stuff.  What the hell does a cherry tree taste like anyway?

At any rate, this particular combo comes off as tasting like a red Fruit by the Foot.


The next treat is this strangely colored Sakura Maccha Latte Kit Kat.  The love that Japan has for matcha (green tea) is intense and all consuming.  However when you get candy that is matcha flavored it never actually tastes like tea.

So this Kit Kat takes the ambiguous, not tea matcha candy flavor and mixes it with the non flavor that they call sakura...
Yeah, I made a weird face at it too...

While as a general rule, I actually hate matcha flavored anything, this was really good.  It tasted a bit like cinnamon and a vaguely chai type spice.  The color is a little bit off putting but I'm not sure that the classic sakura pink would have been much better.

In all, I enjoyed my six mini Kit Kats that came in the box and I MIGHT even buy them again, but they are long gone from the store by now and the convenience store is sadly bereft of strange flavored Kit Kat at the moment.  The soda is still there but really, finishing the one bottle was hard...after a few sips

ティラミス

So I don't know about everyone else, but when I think of tiramisu I imagine a very distinct, very alcoholic flavor.

Nestle and I do not see eye to eye.    

These tiramisu flavored minis came packaged together with プリン (Pudding/Creme Brulee) flavored minis.  

Of the two, these were infinitely better tasting (no alcohol flavor to speak of though)...but that really isn't much of a compliment.  They even look more appetizing than the other flavor.  I decided to not take a picture because they are straight, pure white and they look even worse than they taste.

Back to tiramisu...I don't know what it is they taste like but it reminds me of bad, slightly stale chocolate.

They also come off with a slightly crumbly, dry feeling which is extremely....disconcerting.

As I said though, the プリン flavor is much worse. 

 I was actually really looking forward to them too.  I am a big fan of プリン.  

Seriously, just look at it...all creamy and awesome.  Damn, might be time for a late night snack run.

So the Kit Kat version tastes like....well shit.  

It's bland to start, then the aftertaste follows up and it's almost sour.  Like bad milk sour.  

In all, this Kit Kat venture was a bit of a failure.  I suppose with all of the weird flavors you can get here there has to be a few that aren't so good.  

Sorry I started with a bad one there....oops?