Death by green tea is a good way to go.
Ever since 2016, Mister Donut, Japan’s premier doughnut chain, has been teaming up with esteemed Kyoto tea merchant Gion Tsujiri for a series of limited-edition matcha doughnuts.
This year, the two well-known brands are joining forces yet again, and this time the range includes a couple of special doughnuts that contain the most matcha ever used in Mister Donut’s history.
There are five doughnuts in total, so let’s take a look at them all, starting with…
▼ …the Pon de Double Uji Matcha (205 yen [US$1.36] for takeout; 209 yen for eat-in).
This is a deliciously green take on the chain’s popular “Pon de Ring” doughnut, with Gion Tsujiri’s matcha — sourced from the acclaimed matcha producing region of Uji in Kyoto Prefecture — in both the dough and the chocolate coating, for a double hit of matcha goodness.
▼ Next up, we have the Pon de Uji Matcha Crispy Arare (216 yen for takeout; 220 yen for eat-in).
This doughnut contains the same matcha in the dough and the chocolate coating, but adds tiny pieces of arare (literally “hail” but also the name for rice crackers made with glutinous rice) for an accent in texture and flavour.
▼ The final Pon de Ring is the Pon de Uji Matcha Wasanbon Warabimochi (226 yen for takeout; 231 yen for eat-in).
The matcha here is hidden within the dough and in the whipped cream centre. On top is a dusting of kinako (roasted soybean flour) and alongside the cream is a thick wasanbon warabi mochi (wasanbon is a fine-grained Japanese sugar, while warabi mochi is a jelly-like bracken starch flour rice cake) for an intensely traditional Japanese flavour.
▼ The final two doughnuts are the stars of the collection, containing a newly developed dough that’s rich in both colour and texture, as seen in the cross-section below.
This is the most matcha-intense dough ever produced by the chain, and as mentioned, there are two to choose from:
▼ The Okoi Doughnut Fluffy Matcha Whip (248 yen for takeout and 253 for eat-in).
“Okoi” or “koi” is used to describe something with a rich colour or deep flavour, and these two doughnuts have both, with the Fluffy Matcha Whip containing adzuki red bean paste and soft, melt-in-your-mouth rich matcha whipped cream with a marron glacé topping in the centre.
▼ And finally, we have the Okoi Doughnut with Thick Matcha Cream (248 yen for takeout; 253 yen for eat-in).
This is the doughnut of choice for diehard matcha lovers, with the doughnut-dense dough topped with a double matcha chocolate coating that’s infused with matcha cream.
If you can’t choose just one to try from the lineup above, Mister Donut has you covered with the “Misdo Meets Gion Tsujiri First Release Set“, which contains all five doughnuts, complete with a specially branded paper bag to carry them all in, for 1,143 yen (takeout sales only).
As the name above indicates, this is only the first Misdo Meets Gion Tsujiri collaboration of the year, with a second one on its way from 24 April. While we wait to find out what delicious treats await us in that collection, we can’t wait to eat our way through this first collection, which will be in stores from 27 March to late May.
Source, images: PR Times
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