We taste test the newest desserts from a 112-year-old Japanese tea company.

Here at SoraNews24, we recognize the importance in pushing yourself to the limit. Whether you’re an athlete training for the Olympics, a scientist working towards an epoch-altering breakthrough, or an artist creating something that no one’s ever seen before, the drive to reach the very boundaries of what we can do is one of the noblest things the human heart is capable of.

And so today, we salute Japanese tea company Marushichi Seicha, for creating what it claims is the strongest matcha green tea chocolate that’s physically possible.

Marushichi Seicha is based in Shizuoka Prefecture, one of Japan’s top tea-growing regions, but we didn’t have to leave Tokyo to get our hands on this max-matcha desert. All we had to do was hop on over to the capital’s Shibuya neighborhood, where the company manages a sweets shop called Nanaya.

Nanaya offers a box of assorted green tea chocolates called Matcha 7 (priced at 1,600 yen [US$14.40]). Counterintuitively, you actually get eight different types of chocolate (the “7” is because of the “Shichi” and “Nana” portions of Marushichi and Nanaya, both of which translate to “seven”).

As soon as we opened the box, the aroma of green tea came rising up before draping itself over the surrounding area. Inside the package were 16 bars of chocolate. The two on the far right are made with hojicha (roasted tea), but the other 14 are all matcha chocolates, arrayed in increasing densities of green tea.

Things start off mild with just a 1.2-percent matcha dose, but the concentration ramps up quickly, rising to 1.9, 3.1, 5.1, 8.2, and 13.3 percent. Finally, we reach the pinnacle of matcha with a pair of 29.1-percent sticks, seen on the far right in the photo below.

29.1 might seem like an odd number for Marushichi Seicha to stop at, what with it being so close to a nice, round, 30 percent. According to the company, though, this is as much matcha powder as physics will allow them to put into their chocolate. Any more than that, and the confectionary loses its consistency and falls apart. In other words, this is the most matcha-y chocolate possible, and after taking a bite…

…we totally believe Marushichi Seicha. The highest-concentration Matcha 7 chocolates are intensely bitter, with so much tea flavor that not even all of our native-Japanese taste-testers could handle them. However, serious matcha maniacs will probably love them, so if you can describe yourself as someone who really, really likes matcha, even by Japanese standards, this might be the ultimate dessert for your taste buds.

Confusingly, in addition to the Matcha 7, Nanaya also sells a second collection of chocolates called Tea Chocolate Matcha 7. It’s pretty much the same as the Matcha 7, except raw milk is one of the ingredients, which slightly softens the all-out matcha attack of the normal Matcha 7, but not by much.

▼ Tea Chocolate Matcha 7

But if you want the most intense matcha chocolate experience Marushichi Seicha says you’ll ever have, the standard Matcha 7 (which can also be ordered online here) is the one you want.

Shop information
Nanaya (Aoyama-branch) / ななや（青山店）
Address: Tokyo-to, Shibuya-ku, Shibuya 2-7-12
東京都渋谷区渋谷2-7-12
Open 11 a.m.-9 p.m.
Closed Tuesdays
Website

Photos ©SoraNews24
[ Read in Japanese ]

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[ Read in Japanese ]