23 Kit Kat Flavors, Ranked

Kit Kats have been around for a long time — they were first marketed by the British candy company Rowntree's in 1935, per Penn State University. They're now a popular global brand, but they're not the same everywhere. In the United States, the candy is made by the Hershey Company, but it's a Nestlé product in other countries.

Japan in particular is known for its special Kit Kats, and a much greater variety of flavors is produced for that market than for U.S. consumers. However, Americans aren't just limited to original milk, white, and dark chocolate anymore. We're starting to get a wide variety of flavors, some just as interesting as those coming out of Japan. For this taste test, we sampled a plethora of both American and Japanese Kit Kats in order to find the very best one. Which Kit Kat will rule them all? You'll have to keep reading to find out.

This flavor is a Valentine's Day special, so you might not be able to find it in stores year-round. If it's not available, don't sweat it: it's not very good. Although the picture on the bag makes it look like there's some kind of raspberry jam between the layers, we didn't really see any.

As far as we could tell, most of the fake raspberry flavor comes from the pink fondant on the outside of each mini bar. That fondant has a strange plasticky quality to it and doesn't melt satisfyingly on the tongue. The raspberry flavor is ostentatiously fake and quite strong. There's nothing else to balance out the artificial fruit taste, either. Still, we found the Raspberry Creme Miniatures less disturbing than the Strawberry Duos.

We are firmly in the camp that insists that white chocolate is overrated, but even worse is "white creme," which is just the same palm oil-based fondant we've been complaining about in several entries on this list. It has a strong milky smell with a hint of tang that's reminiscent of cheese.

You don't get that tangy note in the flavor of this Kit Kat, but we kind of wish it was there, as it would add some much-needed complexity to the proceedings. The White Kit Kat just tastes like milk and vanilla, with very little else going on. It's also a little too sweet. However, this flavor does earn a few points because it doesn't taste incredibly fake. It mostly tastes like low-quality white chocolate, which is what we thought it was before we read the label closely.

Lots of Japanese Kit Kats are supposed to taste like fancy desserts. You know this one is extra fancy because you only get a single miniature Kit Kat segment in the package. We had to look up what a Sacher Torte was — apparently it's an Austrian dessert with an illustrious history that consists of a dark chocolate cake glazed with apricot and dark chocolate frosting.

On our first bite, the Sacher Torte Kit Kat was as complex and European as its inspiration would suggest. We got rich dark chocolate along with a fruity note that almost tasted like a liqueur. Unfortunately, this candy wore out its welcome on our palates. It had a long, sour aftertaste that partially ruined its initial positive impression. Still, the fancy wrapper and the apricot flavor gave this candy a sophisticated allure that wasn't completely destroyed by the acidic aftertaste.

Not to spoil the end of this list, but this coffee-flavored Kit Kat was one of the rare times when we thought the American version of a similar concept was executed better. The Japanese Café Au Lait Kit Kat is coated with milky-tasting white chocolate or fondant. It has a nice texture and flavor, but it's very sweet.

The coffee flavoring in this bar seems to come from the wafers. It tastes like real coffee, but it's not bitter enough to counteract the sweetness of the candy coating. We think this Kit Kat would have a better balance of flavor if it was coated with milk or even dark chocolate, as that would add some more bitterness. It doesn't taste bad, but we're glad it's a miniature — a full-sized version would be way too much sugar.

The lovely classic cheesecake slice with a toasted top pictured on the label gave us high expectations for this candy. Sadly, the Cheesecake Kit Kat didn't quite deliver on the flavor it promised. We got some cream cheese tang from the aroma when we opened the wrapper, but that smell didn't translate to the taste at all, even though there was supposed to be cheese powder and salt inside.

Mostly, this just tasted like a white chocolate Kit Kat, with the vanilla and milk notes you'd expect from that flavor profile. We were hoping we'd get some brûléed taste based on the label illustration, but we didn't pick up any roasty notes. This flavor feels like a missed opportunity. It's not bad by any means — the coating seems like it's made with high-quality white chocolate — it's just a little bit boring.

The multipack of Japanese Kit Kats we ordered online came with a little cheat sheet for non-Japanese speakers to identify each flavor of Kit Kat. Unfortunately, the cheat sheet didn't completely match all the flavors we received, and this candy bar wasn't labeled. Based on the packaging design and flavor, we think it's the saucily-named Sweetness For Adults.

There's nothing particularly adult about this Kit Kat, but it is tasty. It's basically a cookies-and-creme variation, with a white chocolate coating that's studded with crushed-up chocolate biscuits. It's quite sweet, but also complex. The white chocolate has an almost caramelized, toasty flavor in addition to tasting like milk and vanilla. The little cookie bits don't have much chocolate taste but they do add textural interest to each bite.

Here goes Nestlé again with the fancy European names for Japanese Kit Kat flavors. We were afraid that the Strawberry Gateau Chocolate would have a weird taste. After all, we hated the American strawberry Kit Kat, and the Sacher Torte, which is like an apricot version of the Strawberry Gateau, was disappointing too. However, we learned to never judge a book by its cover — this is a yummy Kit Kat.

It smells like fake strawberries but tastes much more like the actual fruit. In fact, this Kit Kat is a dead-ringer taste-wise for the dense chocolate cake garnished with strawberries that are pictured on its wrapper. Unlike the Duos Strawberry + Dark Chocolate, this has a high-quality milk chocolate coating that tastes delicious and melts the second it meets the heat of your tongue.

As far as we could tell, the Milk Tea Kit Kat was coated in the same milky white chocolate as the Café Au Lait. This Kit Kat ended up tasting way better, however, because the flavor of the interior counteracted the sweetness of the candy much more effectively.

The filling of this Kit Kat had a strong black tea taste with floral elements that were reminiscent of Earl Grey. The bitterness of the tea was a perfect pairing with the sweet milky candy on the outside of the bar. The overall experience was quite complex, and we noticed new nuances every time we took a bite. The savory qualities of the tea didn't dominate the dessert elements like in the Matcha Kit Kat. It effectively reproduced the experience of drinking real milk tea.

The Thins line is Kit Kat's attempt to make a snackable version of its product that won't weigh you down. Each Kit Kat Thin has a shorter stack of wafers in the middle, which makes it smaller and changes the chocolate-to-wafer ratio in favor of chocolate. The serving size is five Thins, which is pretty fun.

It would take real incompetence to screw up the hazelnut and chocolate flavor combination, and Hershey is not incompetent. This is a really tasty piece of candy. It smells like Nutella and has a strong hazelnut flavor. The inside is a little bit soft, which suggests to us that it's filled with some kind of hazelnut creme. The hazelnut taste works great with the wafers too. Overall, the experience is like eating a slightly less delicious Ferrero Rocher (less delicious because the chocolate isn't quite as good).

If you're a big fan of Thin Mints and wish you could get them all year, we have good news for you: Kit Kat Duos Mint and Dark Chocolate tastes remarkably similar to everyone's favorite Girl Scout Cookie. They smell like York Peppermint Patties, which made us worry the mint would taste too much like toothpaste, but it was actually the perfect amount of mint flavor.

We've made our feelings about Hershey's dark chocolate clear by this point, but in this product, it really works. The bitterness pairs beautifully with the sweet coolness of the mint creme (and the dark chocolate adds to the overall Thin Mints vibe). We bet these would be really good frozen too. Just pray they don't get discontinued so you can get your fill of mint-chocolate cookies whenever you want.

Pistachio Kit Kats are amazing. They taste like the Chocolate Hazelnut Thins, but ever so slightly better. You still have the same Nutella vibe (in fact, if we were tasting these blind, we might guess they wer Nutella-flavored). However, the pistachios bring a mildly bitter edge and taste just a little more complex than hazelnuts do.

We also think the chocolate in this Kit Kat tastes nicer than the chocolate in the Kit Kat Thins. This gets extra points overall for being a full-sized mini Kit Kat rather than a Thin because you get more wafers and creamy pistachio filling. Pistachios don't get used in desserts all that much in the U.S., but it's time to change that. The combo of pistachios and chocolate is too good to ignore.