Japanese Candy: KitKat Flavours and Sushi Gummies

Japanese candy is famous for flavours you won't find anywhere else, and for packaging that makes you stop and look twice. A few of our favourites made the trip. Here's what you're looking at.

KitKat started in England: Rowntree's launched it in 1935, and Nestlé bought the company in 1988. In Japan it became something else entirely. Since 2000, Nestlé Japan has released hundreds of flavours, many of them limited runs or sold in just one region.

Part of the charm is the name. It sounds like kitto katsu, which means roughly "you'll surely win" in Japanese, so a KitKat is a popular good-luck gift before a big exam.

Matcha is green tea ground into a fine powder. The tea plants are shaded for a few weeks before harvest, which gives matcha its bright green colour. The matcha KitKat on our shelf carries the name of Ito En, a Japanese tea company, right on the bag.

The orange version goes the other way: crisp wafers in orange-flavoured chocolate. Both come nine pieces to a bag, which makes them easy to share.

Maguro means tuna, and every piece in the Maguro Zanmai bag is named for a cut of it, with a fruit flavour to match. According to the bag:

• Chutoro (medium-fatty tuna): cherry
• Otoro (the fattiest cut): apple
• Akami (lean red tuna): strawberry
• Shari (sushi rice): yogurt

The bag suggests stacking the pieces to build your own nigiri. Nobody's judging if you play with your food.