Next week, Nestlé’s ruby KitKat will hit UK stores. This lurid – but naturally coloured – treat is made from ruby chocolate, said to be the fourth chocolate after milk, dark and white. But what is it like? We asked some of our resident experts to give it a taste test.
Sonia Sodha, chief leader writer at the Observer (and KitKat enthusiast)
There is so much to recommend a classic KitKat, but I have not always enjoyed its many variations, so it was not without trepidation that I approached its latest blush incarnation. But I needn’t have worried: its glossy pink aesthetics more than won me over and the taste was really quite delicious – creamier than milk chocolate, less sickly than white chocolate, with just a hint of a zingy fruit-yoghurt tang.
Bob Granleese, food editor at the Guardian
Oi, Nestlé, behave! Not only does the packaging on your new pink KitKat rival My Little Pony for tweeness, but you have gone and filled it with what appears to be a four-finger bar of soap. Actually, it might well be, for all I know: this stuff smells like that waft you get when you step within 25 paces of a Lush store. I am not sure I even want to put it in my mouth ... The poor, innocent biscuit inside doesn’t stand a chance against the teeth-achingly sweet coating, which sticks the boot in further with a cloyingly waxy mouthfeel. Forget “Have a break, have a KitKat”. This is just “Give us a break, KitKat”.
Morwenna Ferrier, author of G2’s Faddy Eater column
The first thing I saw was the colour, which led me down two paths, neither good. One: we have an example of pinkification – in 2018. Two: someone has made something millennial pink – in 2018. Wrong on both counts. It turns out that nature has jumped on the millennial pink bandwagon – it is pink because of the ruby cocoa beans – but Nestlé will need to cover that in the small print, because I can’t have been the only person to assume otherwise. Anyway, the taste: it is semi-sweet, slightly perfumed, a bit like those Special K red berries. It is a flavour that manages to linger yet is deeply forgettable. In short, not for me.
Mina Holland, food editor and writer at the Guardian
The original KitKat takes some beating. That said, it has been dead to me since they ditched foil wrappers, so trying this new version is a double novelty. I have always approached KitKats in one of two ways – as a tea-dunking device or as a challenge in oral deconstruction, gnawing the chocolate coating from the wafer before eating the inside. Does the ruby at least match the original in both exercises? I don’t think so. I am not sure I want acidic “berry fruitiness” with my brew, while its body-part hue doesn’t cry out for me to prize it off with my teeth. Give me the original any day, Nestlé – and bring back the foil while you are at it.
