Baskin-Robbins Japan gets extra-Japanese with new kanmidokoro-inspired flavors and sundaes

Mochi sundaes and anmitsu ice cream bring traditional tastes to the chain’s ice cream treats.

The name of Baskin-Robbins Japan’s newest promotion, Springtime Kanmidokoro, might seem a little redundant. Kanmidokoro translates to “sweets shop” or “dessert cafe,” and ice cream is, obviously, a dessert…so why bother going to the trouble of making a distinction that everyone is already well aware of?

The answer is that kanmidokoro is used specifically to refer to places that specialize in traditional Japanese desserts, and its those classic treats that are serving as the inspiration for Baskin-Robbins’s newest ice cream flavor and sundae creations. Making its debut in the Springtime Kanmidokoro is the brand-new Haikara Matcha Anmitsu ice cream.

We’ve got quite a bit to chew on linguistically here, but it’s a safe bet that if you’re reading an article about Japanese ice cream, you already know that matcha is green tea, and this new flavor sources its green tea powder from Kitagawa Hanbee, an esteemed tea merchant in Japan’s top matcha-producing town of Uji. Anmitsu, meanwhile, is a traditional Japanese dessert made with anko (sweet red bean paste), kanten (agar-agar gelatin), and sliced fruit, with kuromitsu (brown sugar syrup) poured on top.

To recreate that, the Haikara Matcha Anmitsu starts with a matcha ice cream base, then works in mixed fruit ice cream (with little bits of fruit) and a ribbon of sweet red bean ice cream with kuromitsu. Add in some kanten-style gelatin pieces, and you’ve got all the flavors of anmitsu together in a scoop of ice cream.

On sale now alongside the Haikara Matcha Anmitsu as part of the Springtime Kanmidokoro campaign are sakura/cherry blossom, pure matcha, hojicha (roasted green tea), and daingon azuki (sweet red bean) flavors, giving you plenty of options to mix and match very Japanese tastes.

And if you want to get even more Japanese with your dessert? You can upgrade your ice cream into a Warabi Mochi Sundae!

Available in either a cone or a cup, this tops your ice cream with blocks of jiggly warabi mochi, dusted with kinako (roasted soybean powder) and drizzled with kuromitsu, plus whipped cream sprinkled with Kitagawa Hanbee matcha powder.

The 650-yen (US$4.40) waffle cone version of the Warabi Mochi Sundae uses one scoop of ice cream and the 850-yen cup uses two. Ostensibly you can pick any flavors you want for the ice cream, but naturally we wanted to try out the new Haikara Matcha Anmitsu, and since cherry blossom season is right around the corner, we picked sakura for our second scoop.

Taking a bite of the Haikara Matcha Anmitsu, we were delighted to find that it really did feel like eating anmistu in ice cream form, and our selection of sakura ice cream to accompany it proved to be a good call, as the mix of bitter tea, gently sweet and salty cherry blossom, milky whipped cream, and sticky sweet kuromitsu all blended together for a comprehensively delicious dessert.

And what better beverage to wash down a Japanese-flavor dessert than with a Japanese-flavor dessert drink?

For its Uji Matcha Grand Shake, Baskin-Robbins takes its Kitagawa Hanbee green tea ice cream and makes a milk shake of it, crowned with a swirl of whipped cream, more matcha powder, and if, you’d like crisscrossing rivulets of kuromitsu.

We splurged for the 750-yen with-kuromitsu version (a 30 yen premium over the no-kuromitsu shake), and it was money very well spent. The balance between bitter matcha and sweet cream is just right, and while the drink was very prettily presented, stirring the kuromitsu and whipped cream into it made everything even more richly layered and decadently satisfying.

After eating our sundae and drinking our shake, we were both very happy and very full, but we think we’ll be able to find room for one more Baskin-Robbins Springtime Kanmidokoro run before the campaign ends on March 31.

Top image: Baskin-Robbins
Insert images: Baskin-Robbins, PR Times, SoraNews24
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