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Green Tea isn\u2019t the only green tea ice cream H\u00e4agen-Dazs makes these days<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Like many of Japan\u2019s sweets suppliers, H\u00e4agen-Dazs Japan<\/strong> is continually rotating special limited-time flavors into its lineup. Their newest, which went on sale July 22, is Gyokuro, named after the green tea of the same name<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Now if you\u2019re thinking \u201cWait a second, I could have sworn I\u2019d seen green tea H\u00e4agen-Dazs in Japan before this,\u201d don\u2019t worry, you haven\u2019t been having dessert delusions. Not only does H\u00e4agen-Dazs Japan already have a green tea flavor, Green Tea<\/strong> (or \u201cGuriin Tii,\u201d as it\u2019s pronounced in its official in-Japanese rendering) is one of their permanent flavors<\/strong>.<\/p>\n In other words, the new Gyokuro flavor hasn\u2019t pushed Green Tea out of convenience store\/supermarket freezer cases. Right now, H\u00e4agen-Dazs Japan has two different green tea flavors on sale, and that made us curious as to just how different they actually are.<\/p>\n First, though, just what is gyokuro?<\/strong> As defined by the Japan Tea Central Association, gyokuro is a green tea made using leaves harvested from plants grown under covers to shade it from the sun for roughly 20 days<\/strong>, with the covers made of materials such as reeds or cloth and put in place when the ichibancha (first-harvest) buds begin to show. As you can probably guess, this delicate cultivation adds time and expense to the production process, but the smaller, pricier yields are worth it to green tea enthusiasts, who hold gyokuro\u2019s extra-deep flavor in high esteem<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u25bc A cup of gyokuro tea<\/p>\n Gyokuro\u2019s premium status is reflected in H\u00e4agen-Dazs\u2019 ice cream version<\/strong>. Whereas our local 7-Eleven branch was selling the brand\u2019s regular Green Tea flavor for 325 yen (US$2.25), the Gyokuro set us back 370 yen, and that\u2019s actually less than the suggested retail price of 400 yen. Oh, and the Gyokuro H\u00e4agen-Dazs is slightly smaller too, with its tub containing 100 milliliters (3.4 ounces) of ice cream, 10 fewer than the Standard Green Tea\u2019s.<\/p>\n We started with a visual check. It\u2019s a little hard to see in camera-captured images, but when viewed with the naked, tea-loving eye, the Gyokuro H\u00e4agen-Dazs is a brighter shade of green than the Green Tea<\/strong>. Since neither ice cream uses any artificial coloring or aromas<\/strong>, we think it\u2019s safe to credit the difference to the quality of the powdered gyokuro leaves and gyokuro extract that H\u00e4agen-Dazs puts into the new flavor<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u25bc Green Tea on the left, Gyokuro on the right<\/p>\n Sliding a spoon into each, we didn\u2019t notice any contrast in consistency between the too, suggesting that they contain similar ratios of cream as well, so this was feeling like it really was going to come down to a matter of the two types of tea themselves in terms of any differences in flavor<\/em>.<\/p>\n We stared with the Green Tea<\/strong> to establish a baseline, and it tasted like ordinary, average matcha ice cream. To be clear, that\u2019s not a criticism. Japan has high standards for sweets across the board, and especially so for green tea desserts, so an ordinary, middle-of-the-pack green tea ice cream is still very, very tasty. However, we wouldn\u2019t say that the H\u00e4agen-Dazs Green Tea dramatically distinguishes itself from most other authentic matcha ice creams in Japan.<\/p>\n But the H\u00e4agen-Dazs Gyokuro?<\/strong><\/p>\n Ah, now this<\/em> was something special!<\/strong> While the difference in flavor is noticeable when drinking a cup of gyokuro compared to standard green tea, we weren\u2019t sure if that would carry over to their ice cream forms. It definitely does, though, and the Gyokuro H\u00e4agen-Dazs has much stronger tea notes. With the Green Tea, there\u2019s an element of sweetness that sticks with you all the way through the flavor profile and lingers into the aftertaste. The Gyokuro, though, gives you just a quick initial sensation of sweetness on the tongue, but by the time you swallow, it\u2019s just the rich tea notes that are lighting up your taste buds, with even a touch of umami, we wrote while in our taste-testing notes while nodding in satisfaction<\/strong>.<\/p>\n So yes, it turns out there\u2019s a reason for the H\u00e4agen-Dazs Green Tea and Gyokuro to both exist, since they\u2019re both delicious, but in different ways. However, we should note that if green tea desserts don\u2019t make up as major a part of your diet as they do ours, the flavor of the Gyokuro isn\u2019t going to beat you over the head with its characteristic charms, so you might want to arrange a little green tea ice cream ceremony for yourself and try them both in the same sitting to really appreciate their differences. After all, double desserts are perfectly acceptable if they\u2019re part of a cultural experience, right?<\/p>\n Photos \u00a9SoraNews24<\/em> Green Tea isn\u2019t the only green tea ice cream H\u00e4agen-Dazs makes these days. Like many of Japan\u2019s sweets suppliers, H\u00e4agen-Dazs Japan is continually rotating special limited-time flavors into its lineup.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1586\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/soranews24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2025\/07\/HD-2-1.jpg?w=504\")
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