Krispy Kreme’s Original Glazed Soft Serve Ice Cream arrives in Japan…but it’s disappointing

We’d had high hopes for the ice cream’s first jaunt outside of the U.S., but it’s not what we were expecting.

On 17 May, Krispy Kreme began selling its Original Glazed Soft Serve Ice Cream in Japan for the first time. While folks in the U.S. have been enjoying this ice cream since June, this is the first time for the dessert to make its debut outside of the U.S., so it’s been met with a buzz of excitement from doughnut lovers like our reporter P.K. Sanjun.

P.K. had high hopes that the sticky, addictive doughnut glaze would be even more delicious in soft serve form, so he headed out to the one place where it’s currently available — the Tokyo International Forum branch.

▼ This is a very rare soft cream that’s yet to be made available at other branches in Japan.

As the name suggests, the Original Glazed Soft Serve is a product inspired by the chain’s classic doughnut, the “Original Glazed“. In addition to the regular version, priced at 572 yen for takeout or 583 yen for eat-in, there’s also a chocolate and strawberry sprinkles version on the menu, priced at 626 yen for takeout or 638 yen for eat-in.

Image: Krispy Kreme Japan

P.K. wanted to get a taste of the original so he placed his order for it, but when he received it he saw it looked like nothing more than a simple vanilla-flavoured soft serve ice cream.

Still, he had high hopes that deep within the vanilla there would be that delicious glaze, so he took a big mouthful off the top, only to realise…

▼ …it really was just vanilla-flavoured ice cream.

P.K.’s palate felt as bland and colourless as the photo above, and as he peered into the disappointing ice cream he wondered what the heck had gone wrong here.

Had his expectations been too high? Or was the ice cream relying too much on the crumb topping for its flavour? According to the information on the official website, the Original Glazed doughnut flavour was contained within the crumbs and the cone, with none of it seemingly inside the actual ice cream.

The soft serve itself was smooth and creamy, but it lacked the wow factor it could’ve had if it contained a streak or two of glaze. The cone, hand-baked in-store, had a great crunchy texture, but it was hard to get any doughnut flavour from it.

Despite the promotional posters billing it as a soft serve ice cream that tastes just like an Original Glazed doughnut, P.K. struggled to find even one skerrick of a doughnut-tasting element in the mix.

Sure, it was a great-tasting ice cream, and P.K. would even go so far as to say it’s super delicious. It just doesn’t taste like a doughnut. Not at all. 

Oh well. You win some, you lose some, and with the chain setting the bar high with its Biscoff drink and doughnut burgers recently, this is just one blip in our relationship we’re bound to get over soon.

Related: Krispy Kreme Japan
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