Kyoto’s most beautiful parfait cafes add sakura sweets for spring

Cherry blossom season arrives at Itohkyuemon.

In Japan, there are a number of parks, gardens, and streets that are famous for their cherry blossom trees, drawing visitors to them every spring when the flowers come into bloom. There’s another aspect to the sakura seasonal cycle, though, as certain cafes and sweets shops deliver amazing cherry blossom desserts year after year, and one of those is Itohkyuemon.

Itohkyuemon is, first and foremost, a Kyoto tea merchant, having been in that business since all the way back in 1832. In the modern era, however, matcha isn’t just a drink, it’s also one of Japan’s most popular dessert flavors, and Itohkyuemon has enthusiastically expanded into matcha sweets. Its amazingly beautiful matcha parfaits are a menu highlight at its chain of Kyoto cafes, and with spring here, it’s time for Itohkyuemon to roll out this year’s Sakura Matcha Parfait.

At the top of that parfait glass filled with mouthwatering elegance are sakura an (sweet bean paste), sakura-infused kinton (candied chestnut), shiratama (mochi dumpling balls), whipped cream, and a matcha wafer. Shown right underneath the rim in the photo is a layer of sakura gelatin, underneath which is a stratum of puffed rice. Any parfait needs ice cream, and in this case, naturally, Itohkyuemon uses sakura ice cream, with blocks of sakura kanten (agar agar) and matcha gelatin mixed in, and the finishing touch is a generous amount of matcha mitsu (brown sugar syrup).

Believe it or not, Itohkyuemon predicts that some customers might want even more variety, and so they’re also offering a Sakura Matcha Sweets Plate with a different assortment of treats.

Here you get a slice of matcha cheesecake topped with an actual sakura flower (they’re edible), a dish with scoops of sakura and matcha ice cream, a daifuku dumpling with a sakura dough coating and matcha an filling, matcha and hojicha (roasted green tea) chocolates, a slice of matcha roll cake, and a mini parfait. As for the silhouetted courtly couple on the plate, the full name of this set is the The Tale of Genji Sakura Matcha Sweets Plate, referencing the historical novel which is set in the Kyoto Prefecture town of Uji, where Itohkyuemon’s tea is grown.

The Sakura Matcha Parfait is priced at 1,390 yen (US$9.50) and the Sakura Matcha Sweets Plate at 1,690, or 1,790/1,990 yen if you add a cup of matcha. The parfait is available at Itohkyuemon’s Uji, JR Uji Station, and downtown-Kyoto Gion Yonjo cafes, while the sweets plate is only on offer at the Uji and JR Uji Staton locations. Both are available now, but will only be sticking around for a limited, unspecified amount of time.

Related: Itohkyuemon location list
Source: @Press via Japaaan
Top image: Itohkyuemon
Insert images: @Press
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