8 Japanese ice cream flavours you need to try

Chavaty operates as a tea shop serving classic treats like scones, but the store also serves delectable tea-flavoured ice creams (¥583) that are worth stopping by for when exploring the backstreets of Omotesando. Hojicha, or roasted green tea, has an earthy, toasty richness that makes it perfect for desserts, especially in the summer. To ensure that its soft-serve has the same depth of flavour year-round, Chavaty sources its tea leaves from different prefectures across Japan according to season.  

Ouca in Ebisu specialises in Japanese flavoured ice cream. The showcase is stocked with around a dozen house-made gelato, which are served with a piece of Japanese wafer and a side of salted kombu (seaweed).

While many of the flavours are seasonal, kinako (roasted soybean flour) with black honey is a staple. Other regular flavours include milk, matcha, azuki, karinto (sweet deep fried Japanese crackers), black sugar hojicha and black sesame. Not to worry if you can’t decide on one – you can choose up to three flavours per cup.

Made with handpicked ingredients from all across Japan, the craft ice cream at Hio Ice Cream Atelier is driven by the quality of ingredients rather than mass production. 

Among the current seasonal offerings is a fragrant Japanese oolong tea ice cream, featuring leaves from the Fuji Marumo Tea Garden. This tea garden is managed by fifth-generation tea master Mohei Honda, who cultivates various tea leaves near the base of Mt Fuji. For this flavour, premium Hokkaido Biei milk is infused with a special variety of oolong called 'Tsuyu Hikari', giving the ice cream a rich, floral note.

Harlow first opened in Kobe in 2017 before setting its Tokyo outpost in Hiroo. All the selections here are made in-house using premium Hokkaido milk, and feature six unique flavours including salt and cream cheese, chocolate and brownie as well as butterscotch and pecan. You’ll be glad to know that these frozen treats contain natural sweeteners only instead of white sugar. 

Three kinds of non-dairy ice cream are also available daily, made entirely with vegan plant milk. Flavours include coconut and soy maple cookie as well as our favourite – sesame miso and black cookie. There’s also a refreshing mixed berry sorbet if you prefer to have something without the creaminess. Get your treats in a cup or a freshly made cone which is also vegan.

Hailing from Okinawa, Blue Seal originally opened as an American-style ice cream parlour to serve soldiers at the military base, but it now offers more familiar Japanese flavours. While you can’t go wrong with the classic neapolitan, chocolate mint or chocolate banana ice cream, we recommend trying one of its unique Okinawan flavours. The refreshing shikuwasa (Okinawa’s native citrus) sherbert in particular has a sweet and sour tanginess that’s perfect on a hot day.

The other Okinawan special flavours are Ryukyu royal milk tea made with black tea from Nago city in Okinawa, and sugar cane. The chinsuko (Okinawan salt cookie) is Blue Seal’s take on the classic cookies and cream, except it's a vanilla ice cream with bits of crushed chinsuko.

At Nanaya, you can choose from seven different green tea ice creams, each with a different concentration of potent matcha. The most popular order is number seven, the scoop with the highest grade and intensity of matcha. If you’re a sweet tooth, choose a lighter colour; the deeper the shade of green, the more bitter the matcha flavour. Otherwise, get a combination of two to compare.

Apart from matcha, Nanaya also serves other tea-flavoured ice creams such as hojicha and sencha (infused green tea); there’s also chestnut in autumn. Prices range from ¥400 to ¥850, depending on the matcha’s level of intensity.

Sorry kids, these boozy scoops are only for the over 20s. Sakeice in Asakusa specialises in ice cream flavoured with the quintessential Japanese tipple. There are two types of sake ice cream here, one of which changes seasonally, but they are all made with rice alcohol from the acclaimed Otokoyama brewery in Hokkaido, which relies on natural spring water for its sake.

The level of alcohol in each scoop (from ¥550) probably isn’t enough to get you tipsy, but the subtle sweetness of the rice brew compliments the creamy texture of the ice cream, making for a perfect frozen treat. For youngsters, however, the shop offers classic strawberry and vanilla, which are non-alcoholic.

Vegans usually get stuck with sorbet when it comes to finding dairy-free ice cream. That isn’t the case at Premarché Gelateria, where, on top of fruity sorbets, the store also serves vegan gelato that’s so creamy you’d never believe it’s completely milk-free.

Japanese varieties here range from shiso sorbet to roasted sweet potato gelato, but the tartness of the refreshing kishu nanko ume (Japanese plum) makes it especially popular in the summertime. Pick one flavour for ¥700 or two for ¥800.