With two donuts featuring matcha and two featuring hojicha flavor, tea lovers can take their pick of a more traditional take on the humble donut.
Mister Donut (nicknamed “Misdo”) locations around Japan released the latest in the chain’s “Misdo meets Gion Tsujiri” collaboration on April 26. This is the donut chain’s second series this year partnering with famous Kyoto tea merchant Gion Tsujiri.
We taste-tasted the first series of five specialty donuts when they came out in late March, and so we were primed for the second lineup to see how they would differ. Our Japanese-language reporter Tasuku Egawa had the delight of trying out the four new donuts detailed below. Let’s get rolling!
Uji Matcha-filled donut / 226 yen (US$1.66) (takeout) or 231 yen (dine-in)
As advertised, this donut was packed with decadent, freshly whipped cream infused with rich matcha flavor. Taking account of the matcha in the dough, matcha in the cream, and little cubes of matcha chocolate mixed in, it tasted like the ultimate, luxurious green tea product. Out of all four new pastries, this donut definitely offered the most straight-up matcha madness. Tasuku recommends it to all of the green tea lovers out there.
Uji Matcha Chestnut Paste Warabimochi donut / 226 yen (takeout) or 231 yen (dine-in)
This one also featured a generous serving of the matcha-infused whipped cream, chestnut paste, and brown sugar warabimochi filling. It was very good, but Tasuku felt that it had the overall vibe of a cake, not a donut. The chewy warabimochi and full-bodied flavor of the chestnut paste only further solidified his feeling.
Uji Hojicha-filled Choux donut / 216 yen (takeout) or 220 yen (dine-in)
The second two donuts don’tfeature matcha but instead hojicha, or roasted green tea. Tasuku was excited to cut this one open to see what was inside.
He was greeted by a deep brown color due to the freshly whipped, hojicha-infused cream and azuki beans. This particular donut was Tasuku’s favorite of the mix. If the point of this collaboration was to highlight traditional Japanese flavors, then this one did the best job at that.
Uji Hojicha Choux Chestnut Anko Warabimochi Puffy donut / 216 yen (takeout) or 220 yen (dine-in)
The last donut was the only one not filled with tea-infused whipped cream of some kind. Instead, the hojicha powder was mixed directly into the dough. Inside were also candied chestnuts and a brown sugar warabimochi filling. Tasuku thought that all of those additions would dilute the hojicha flavor, but that wasn’t the case at all. In fact, the dough gave off a lovely hojicha fragrance.
All in all, it was easy for Tasuku to eat all four of the donuts together because they weren’t overly sweet. If you’d like to try any of the above, make sure you get to a Mister Donut store soon because they’ll only be available through the end of May. Hopefully at that point we’ll have plenty of other kinds of green tea-flavored treats to munch on.
Reference: Mister Donut
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