Three great mint chocolate sweets to buy at 7-Eleven while the summer heat gives us an excuse

Hey, it’s really, really hot, so we’re gonna eat three mint chocolate desserts all in one sitting.

With the summer heat still scorching Japan, we can only spend a few minutes walking around outside before we start looking for a convenience store oasis to duck into and search for reviving refreshments. And these days, there’s no better oasis than 7-Eleven Japan, which has recently released not one, not two, but three different seasonal sweets for mint chocolate fans.

In recent years, sweet fans in Japan have come to the consensus that summer is the season of mint chocolate treats, because when the weather gets this hot and humid, any kind of relief is welcome, including the psychological cooling sensation of mint. So when our Japanese-language reporter Snufkin came across 7-Eleven’s special summertime mint chocolate trio, she snatched up the whole set for a taste test. A triple helping of the same flavor might sound like a bit much, but it turns out that each of the three sweets has its own unique taste profile and appeal.

To start things off, Snufkin unwrapped, and very quickly bit into, the Chocolate Mint Bar.

Actually, this 170-yen (US$1.15) ice cream bar’s Japanese-language name, Mint Oshi no Tame no Choco Mint Bar, is a little more colorful. That’s the same oshi that’s used to talk about your favorite obsessive crush-level idol or anime character, and by calling it the “Mint Chocolate Bar for People with Mint as their Oshi,” 7-Eleven is making it clear that this is for serious mint chocolate fans, and the flavor lives up to that promise. As soon as she took a bite, Snufkin could feel that icy tingle that mint chocolate fans love in the back of her throat. Yes, there’s plenty of chocolate sweetness too, with both chocolate chips and slightly larger chocolate pieces mixed in with the ice cream, but the mint flavor is undeniably powerful.

Next up: the Chocolate Mint Ice Cream Parfait (321 yen).

Like with the ice cream bar, the parfait’s Japanese name is the more descriptive Mint Oshi no Tame no Choco Mint Parfait (321 yen). Starting at the top, you’ve got chocolate cookie crumbles drizzled with chocolate sauce, then a layer of pure mint ice cream, another stratum of cookie bits, and finally a foundation of mint chocolate ice cream.

This means that if you’re disciplined enough to eat one layer at a time, for part of your sweets session you’ll be eating just mint ice cream, with no chocolate accompaniment. Perhaps for this reason, the mint ice cream here doesn’t feel as powerfully minty as the cream in the Chocolate Mint Bar, so as not to overpower and numb your taste receptors. This milder strength might make it a little light on impact for the hardest of hard-core mint fans, but overall this is an excellent mix of flavors, and the moist cookie crumbles give the parfait a soft, creamy texture.

Both the Chocolate Mint Ice Cream Bar and Chocolate Mint Ice Cream Parfait went on sale last week, but the third member of our taste test group, the Chocolate Mint Whipped Cream and Chocolate sandwich (367 yen), has been available since July.

Dessert sandwiches are a sizable part of the sweets scene in Japan, and 7-Eleven definitely knows what they’re doing here. The mint chocolate cream sandwich is made with peppermint oil extract from Kitami, Hokkaido Prefecture, Japan’s most prestigious mint-producing region which at one point accounted for roughly 70 percent of the global mint market.

In terms of minty flavor, the Mint Whipped Cream and Chocolate sandwich lands somewhere between the extra-strong Chocolate Mint Bar and the milder Chocolate Mint Ice Cream Parfait. Not only is that an elegantly balanced spot to be in, the sandwich’s cream has a fantastically refreshing and enticing aroma, and even though the sandwich is the most expensive of the three items Snufkin taste-tested, it’s her favorite of the bunch.

As is usually the case with seasonal sweets, all of these will be available for a limited, unspecified time, but with the heat wave continuing we’re happy to have them for as long as we can.

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