Shinkansen ice cream sales suspended on board bullet train, sell out online

These Shinkansen-exclusive ice creams are so famous they even have their own hashtag.

When you take a trip on a Japanese bullet train, there are a lot of things to look forward to on the journey, including the onboard trolley service, where you can purchase Sujata ice cream, a treat so rare it can’t be purchased anywhere else.

Now, with passenger numbers down during the pandemic, one Shinkansen line has sadly suspended sales of the ice cream onboard from February. However, they’ve decided to make everyone’s dreams come true by offering the Shinkansen-exclusive ice cream for sale online, and it’s so popular it sells out within minutes every time there’s a restock.

▼ Our Japanese-language reporter K. Masami failed to get an order in for the new ice creams until she got lucky on the third restock.

The Sanyo Shinkansen, which connects Shin-Osaka in Osaka with Hakata Station in Fukuoka, is selling the ice creams online in 12-piece boxes, containing either all vanilla, all matcha or six of each variety. Masami got the mixed set and immediately went to open one of the matcha ice creams first, as it’s the one she always chooses when riding the Shinkansen.

Peeling off the foil lid, Masami was curious to see if the home-delivered ice creams would have the same hardness as the ones served on the train. Sujata ice creams are so famous for their hardness they even have their own hashtag on social media–“Shinkansen sugoi katai aisu” (“super hard Shinkansen ice cream“)–with photos and videos showing people unable to insert the spoon into the super-stiff ice cream.

▼ Masami took hold of the attached spoon and went to stab it into the dessert, but no matter how hard she tried, it just wouldn’t penetrate through the surface.

▼ No doubt about it, this was the genuine super hard Shinkansen ice cream!

Letting go of the spoon leaves it standing upright on its own in the tub, a sight so familiar to Sujata ice cream fans it should really become the logo for the brand. As fans will know, it takes about ten minutes for the ice cream to soften up just enough to allow the spoon to slide into the still-hard ice cream–which means you should order it way in advance of reaching your stop–so Masami left the tub for a while and came back to it once she was able to pick up a good spoonful.

As soon as she managed to tease the dessert out onto the spoon, Masami dropped a dollop onto her tongue and closed her eyes. The delicious taste of the rich, high quality matcha ice cream melted ever so slowly over her taste buds, immediately whisking her off to a seat on a bullet train, where the only destination that mattered was the bottom of the tub inside her hand.

Currently, the end-date for online sales of the ice cream is yet to be announced, although the company has said they’ll be available online until the day before onboard sales resume. So if you’d like to try the famously hard ice creams in the comfort of your own home, the time to purchase them is now, and at 4,800 yen (US$44.97) for a box of 12, including tax and shipping, it’s a lot cheaper than having to buy a ticket on the bullet train to try one.

Related: West Japan Railway Food Service Net Company
Photos © SoraNews24
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