Experiment: Can you make a good matcha latte by melting green tea ice cream?

Green tea ice cream is pretty easy to find these days as it’s a hit internationally. However, matcha latte often requires a bit more walking and sometimes even a trip to a cafe as it’s not as widely available in supermarkets and convenience stores as regular green tea.

So while we have green tea ice cream in our freezer pretty regularly, we’re much less likely to have matcha latte in our fridge. However, we recently came across an intriguing idea to transform green tea ice cream into a matcha latte, and we were keen to try this matcha alchemy for ourselves.

The method comes from the official Twitter account of the National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations of the Japan Agricultural Cooperatives Group, also known as Zen-Noh. According to Zen-Noh, to make matcha latte from matcha ice cream, all you need to do is mix the ice cream with milk in a cup, heat it to room temperature to let the two mix, and then add some ice to cool it down again. Actually, you could probably skip this last step if you fancy a hot matcha latte, but here in the middle of August, cold matcha latte is definitely the more appealing option for us right now.

Experiment: Can you make a good matcha latte by melting green tea ice cream?

Zen-Noh’s tweet shows that they’re using Häagen-Dazs Green Tea Ice Cream, but to test this idea thoroughly and also to have an excuse to indulge in even more ice cream, we also got ourselves a tub of Essel Super Cup Matcha Ice Cream from Konditor Meiji…

… and a cup of Uji Matcha ice cream from Eatime, a brand available exclusively at Japanese grocery chains Maruetsu, Max Valu and Kasumi.

To minimize other variables, we followed the same process for making our three glasses of matcha latte. We started by scooping a large spoonful and a half of ice cream into a glass, then pouring in milk until it was about 80 percent full. We then put the glass in the microwave and heated it at 500 watts for 30 seconds, then another 10 seconds at a time until the mixture was lukewarm. After that, we took the glass out, added a few ice cubes to chill it, and took a sip.

Let’s see how the transformation from ice cream to matcha latte turned out.

● Haagen-Dazs

First of all, we should say that Häagen-Dazs Japan really knows what it’s doing with its green tea ice cream. With strong tea notes, subtle sweetness and a slight bitterness, it really ticks all the boxes for a delicious, high-quality green tea ice cream, and all of these admirable qualities were also evident when our Japanese-speaking reporter, Anji Tabata, who was tasting it, took her first sip of our homemade Häagen-Dazs Matcha Latte. It was outstanding, and from the taste alone, Anji would never have guessed that it wasn’t originally intended as a beverage.

● Meiji Essel Super Cup

Although they all taste like green tea, there is quite a bit of variation in the intensity of the tea flavor in different matcha ice cream flavors. Compared to Häagen-Dazs, Meiji makes its ice cream a bit sweeter and less bitter, and that in turn carries over into the resulting matcha latte. Our Meiji-based drink had more pleasant sweetness than stimulating bitterness, but that’s not a bad thing and might even be preferable for some people, depending on exactly where their personal preference for the blend of flavors in matcha latte lies.

● Mealtime

Continuing this concept, the Eatime ice cream and the matcha latte we made with it had the most subtle green tea flavor of the three. That’s not to say the matcha latte was bland, though, because with the matcha less prominent, the rich milk had more room to tickle the taste buds.

So yes, it turns out Zen-Noh’s idea of turning matcha ice cream into matcha lattes absolutely works! The properties of certain brands of ice cream are also preserved, so if you have a favorite flavor, you won’t be disappointed with the matcha latte you make with it either.

Anji’s favorite was the Matcha Latte from Häagen-Dazs, because for her, the more matcha flavor in the Matcha Latte, the better. In fact, the Matcha Latte from Häagen-Dazs was so good that…

…Anji decided to go beyond Zen-Noh’s recommendation and use a full-fledged parfait bar: Matcha Fondant Crunch by Häagen-Dazs.

Since the ice cream is covered in chocolate and can’t be put in a cup, Anji had to take a different approach when making her Matcha Fondant Crunch matcha latte. She started by pouring herself a cup of milk and heating it in the microwave at 500 watts for two minutes. She then dipped the ice cream bar into the cup of hot milk, stirred it a few times, and took a sip of the melted ice cream and milk mixture.

The results were exquisite, delighting the kind of glorious decadence that she imagined even members of the matcha dessert-loving aristocracy would enjoy if they had only thought of it.

The only real downside is that the milk needs to be hot enough to melt the chocolate layer of the Matcha Fondant Crunch, so Anji’s idea only works for hot Matcha Lattes. Also, the milk probably won’t melt the ice cream bar completely, so you’ll have to occasionally take the bar out of the cup and take a bite straight out of it (but that’s not really a huge downside).

With this new knowledge of Zen-Noh, we are curious to see what other types of ice cream this method can be deliciously applied to. So we need to go out and buy as many varieties as we can fit in the freezer to test further. One point of caution, however, is that the drinks we made were originally pure desserts and not sweet drinks, so there is a chance that they may contain more calories than regular matcha lattes. If you are looking for healthier dessert options, Zen-Noh also has some great ideas around fruits.

Reference: Twitter/@zennoh_food

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