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Green tea flavored cheese tart? Yup, that definitely sounds too good to pass up!

When specialty cheese tart shop PABLO announced that their seasonal tart for the period March 15 to June 14 was going to be Uji Matcha — powdered green tea from the Uji area of Kyoto — we couldn’t stop fantasizing about how it would taste. So, we wasted no time in heading to their Omotesando store to get our hands on one.

Here we were at the PABLO Omotesando store, located near Meiji Jingu-mae Station.

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The store has a two-story cafe attached to it, as the menu board outside indicates, so if you’re in need of immediate nourishment, you can have a slice of freshly baked tart right then and there with a beverage of your choice.

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And another sign outside told us that the Uji Matcha Cheese Tart was indeed on sale.

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The cafe seemed to have a good number of seats, but we would imagine they fill up very quickly on weekends and holidays.

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Once inside, you can see the kitchen and oven, where all the sweet goodness is created.

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And of course, we gravitated toward the lovely tarts on display.

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There was the Uji Matcha Cheese Tart that we had come for, in all its green glory.

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The Strawberry and Pistachio Cheese Tart, their tart of the month for March, was actually sold out when we visited in the evening around 7 pm, so we were relieved to find out the matcha tarts weren’t all gone!

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With a tart purchased, we were ready to take one of these green gems home and have a sweet feast! We couldn’t wait to open the box.

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▼ And the sight that greeted us didn’t disappoint!

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▼ Just look at the gleaming green color!

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Once we placed it on a plate…

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…we were ready to cut into the beautiful green cake!

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Now, the bright green color of the tart gave us a good indication that plenty of matcha had been used. But it also contained sweet red bean paste and balls of shiratama (plain round mochi) to add more traditional Japanese flavors to the cake.

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The matcha-filled creamy cheese inside looked like it was about to spill out!

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Yes, it was pretty to look at even as an individual slice, and now we were finally going to be able to taste it!

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Oh, and it’s a bit hard to see with the green creamy cheese surrounding it, but sure enough, we found a soft, chewy shiratama mochi ball.

▼ Mmmm!

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And our impression after actually eating the tart? The “cheese tart” elements of the cake along with the fresh scent and slightly bitter flavor of matcha gave it just the right amount of sweetness without being too rich. Moreover, the creamy inside of the tart was so delicately soft that putting it into our mouth was bliss. Plus, the red bean paste, which still had small bits of the original beans, and the chewy shiratama balls added a nice texture as well.  In short, we were swooning with pleasure as we savored the tart. And we are quite sure it would go well with either western-style or Japanese-style tea.

If you want to find out for yourself how green tea mixed with cheese tart tastes, the Uji Matcha Cheese Tart is available at all PABLO stores except the PABLO mini Akihabara branch until June 14. For those of you who enjoy sweets, we think this dessert is definitely worth trying!

Store/cafe information
PABLO Omotesando/ パブロ（表参道店）
Tokyo-to, Shibuya-ku, Jingu-mae, 1-14-21
東京都渋谷区神宮前1-14-21
(1 minute from Exit 3 of subway Meiji Jingu-mae Station)
Open 10 a.m.-9:00 p.m.
English website

Reference: PABLO website
Images ©RocketNews24