Here’s a fun one for our series on the social construction of flavor!
See also:
And the list wouldn’t be complete without our Jell-O posts:
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Comments 43
TyphoidMary — January 29, 2012
....green?
Ginny — January 29, 2012
These are yummy, a nice mild flavor.
Junpei Komiyama — January 29, 2012
Actually, "green-tea flavor" is widespread in Japan. You can find chocolates, ice creams, cakes, etc.. of the flavor.
Lillian — January 29, 2012
Ha, what a coincidence. It was literally yesterday that I read a comment that used "green-tea Kitkats" as an example of the content of superficial (and possibly outdated, not sure from context) websites about Japan.
(My comment isn't meant to reflect on THIS site, which is not a site about Japan anyway. ;) I just thought it was interesting that the thing itself has become decontextualized to that extent.)
Inooradd — January 29, 2012
How is flavor socially constructed here? How is it socially constructed in general? Are you playing off Bourdieu's class and culture thesis? I don't get it.
Meghan O'Connor — January 29, 2012
It may sound strange, but it's a great combo. I love these. I made chocolate cupcakes once with green tea frosting for work and they were gone in 3 minutes!
Roger Braun — January 29, 2012
So people from other countries like to eat different things than we do? You never stop learning something new! ;-)
Elena — January 29, 2012
As a matter of fact, as the pretty flowers in the packaging would imply, 桜抹茶 is sakura matcha. Sakura as in cherry tree blossom, matcha as in the powdered green tea that is used in the Japanese tea ceremony. So it's doubly a super-Japanese thing.
Most famously, there is also sakura-flavored kit kat for the exams season in April: it coincides with the cherry tree blossom season, and "kit kat" sounds like きっと勝つ "kitto katsu" which means "sure win", so it's a nice present for a kid taking entry exams to school.
Last Autumn I went on holidays to Kyoto, and there were big packages of kit kat with the Kyoto-limited flavours (place-limited flavors are usually meibutsu): matcha, houjicha (roasted tea) and yatsuhashi (a kind of rice paste confectionery). I bought a lot of Japan-only chocolates to take to my co-workers as a souvenir, so I really like these kit kats :D
Cheryl — January 29, 2012
Japan has the best Kit-Kats! My favorites were dark chocolate/red wine and white chocolate/cheesecake.
Anonymous — January 29, 2012
Green tea/matcha flavor has caught on in the US. I remember buying green tea Frapuccinos back around 2005, and my local ice cream parlor always has green tea ice cream available.
I ordered several of the different Japanese Kit Kats a couple years ago (matcha flavor, sweetcorn flavor, some sports drink flavor, and I forget what else), and was disappointed by all of them. They all tasted primarily of white chocolate with just a hint of the labeled flavor.
Mieko Gavia — January 29, 2012
I speak from experience that these. taste. amazing.
Stefanie Smith — January 29, 2012
Green tea is also a popular flavor in Hawaii--I think matcha frappuccinos went on the menu here first.
I was going to post a photo of a slightly different green tea kit-kat flavor (little less sweet than sakura), but it won't embed, so click here if you're interested:
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/grysy8_-6WGaOUIIOfLCANMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=directlink
But my husband's favorite is wasabi. It's sweet, not really spicy, but still tastes like wasabi. Very strange experience.
Dee679 — January 29, 2012
I'm not sure how much it's socially constructed around the specific flavor, and just more of a regionally popular product which in turn warrants more flavor options. Kit-Kats in America have one flavor (although I have seen a special for a bit in dark chocolate). Japanese kitkats come in like 30+ flavors - green tea is just the tip of the iceberg. (And yes, they are all amazing somehow. Even mango kitkat.)
Anonymous — January 29, 2012
This and the comments on the related articles make me think you should dedicate an entire post to micheladas. I work in a bar and we constantly have requests for them. The bartenders and I always wonder why anyone would order them when much tastier, more potent bloody marys are to be had for the same price. Then I start wondering why anyone wants bloody marys anyway. Delicious, but one can't deny they taste like alcoholic liquid salad.
Gilbert Pinfold — January 30, 2012
the green tea kit kat lovers are a fairly homogenous racial group, I fail to see clear evidence of cultural 'construction'. Since races are extended families, these tastes may be genetically determined.
Jennifer — January 30, 2012
I recall seeing a note next to some durian sandwich cookies in an Asian grocery along the lines of--"there is nothing wrong with these cookies--they are not spoiled; this is what they are supposed to taste like"
LarryW — January 30, 2012
So our taste buds are socially constructed? I might like tripe if my mother had given it to me when I was a toddler? I never had kimchi until I was 24, but I liked it (and still do).
Rachel Keslensky - Last Res0rt — January 30, 2012
If that's anything like green tea pocky, SO WANT.
MissDisco — January 30, 2012
Red Lemonade!
http://www.nileguide.com/destination/blog/dublin/files/2010/07/TK-red-lemonade.jpg
annette boehm — January 31, 2012
I rather enjoy the Wasabi flavor KitKat (also from Japan). :) Now there's a flavor combination.
Moonbunnychan — February 8, 2012
More interesting, probably, is that Kit Kats have a kind of folklore in Japan. "Kitto Katsu" roughly translates to "I hope you will win" and is basically a way of telling somebody good luck. So it's become a sort of tradition to have Kit Kats at exam time as a good luck charm. As a result, there's been something like 45 different flavors of Kit Kats in Japan.
Flaquito77 — April 19, 2012
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150673194301701&set=a.436451306700.232778.541106700&type=1&theater¬if_t=like
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