Häagen-Dazs Japan’s 35th anniversary Green Deep Tea ice cream is no ordinary matcha dessert

Amazingly high-quality tea leaves are the key ingredient in this milestone flavor.

We’re still enjoying the culinary afterglow of our all-matcha multi-course Häagen-Dazs meal in Tokyo’s swanky Roppongi neighborhood, but if we’ve learned one thing in life, it’s that you can’t spend too much time living in the past. And so we now bravely turn our hearts and minds to the future, specifically to July.

That’s the date that Häagen-Dazs Japan will release its 35th anniversary flavor, and it’s appropriately chosen a very special kind of green tea to mark three and a half decades in the country. Called Midori Koicha, the flavor’s name  translates to “Green Deep Tea,” and it comes in a unique container decorated with the image of a mizuhiki celebratory cord.

But what’s really important, of course, is what’s inside the container. For this milestone release, Häagen-Dazs isn’t using just any matcha. The tea that goes into the ice cream is entirely hand-picked, first-harvest leaves, which are shaded for more than 35 days when growing to enhance their flavor. That’s even longer than the 20 or so days of shaded growth that’s the norm for gyokuro, one of the most prized, and expensive, types of green tea in all of Japan.

Once these premium-quality leaves have been harvested, Häagen-Dazs uses an extra-large quantity for the Midori Koicha. The company is promising a rich and complex taste sensation that balances the sweet and bitter notes that harmoniously coexist in the finest Japanese teas, and given that these are the same people who made the “ice cream Jesus” of green tea ice cream treats, we’re already looking forward to this edible 35th anniversary party.

Midori Koicha will be priced at 350 yen (US$3.20), and goes on sale at supermarkets and convenience stores on July 9, so that’s the day to circle on your calendar (preferably in green ink).

Source: Häagen-Dazs via Entabe
Top image: Häagen-Dazs
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