GREEN TEA SWEETS | SWEET

In Japan there has been a huge green tea, or matcha flavored boom.Green tea is a traditional, old tea, but there has been a modern trend in green tea fusion snacks and drinks. For example matcha ice cream and matcha lattes.

The origins of match ice cream are not clear, but it is said that it has existed as a flavor in Japan since the meiji period as it was an item on the emperors menu. Green tea ice cream was always handmade but it was not properly merchandised by major companies because they stuck to normal flavors like vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. However, the reason for its recent boom in popularity is actually from California. Maeda-en USA, the Japanese green tea company in the US started selling green tea ice cream saying it was pure japanese style from California. It became a huge popular dessert in California and even started to sell it in sushi restaurants. They began to import it to Japan and sold it in combinis and advertised it in newspapers. So, chefs began to realize that they can't just stick to the original three flavors and started including green tea as a modern twist. Maeda-en also invented the matcha latte in 1999 in the world's first ever Matcha cafe. Now matcha flavored snacks and drinks are literally everywhere in Japan.

Photo Credit: Roti n Rice