Misdo Meets Gion Tsujiri for five new matcha donuts created in conjunction with Kyoto tea company that’s been in business for over 150 years.

Walk into most dessert cafes or convenience store sweets sections in Japan at this time of year, and you’ll be greeted by an array of treats styled and flavored to align with the cherry blossoms coming into bloom. So some might say the timing is a little unusual for Mister Donut to be launching an extensive new line of green tea donuts just as the rest of the country’s confectioners are going pink.

But on the other hand, any time is a great time for a collaboration with Gion Tsujiri, one of Japan’s most prestigious tea merchants who’ve been in the matcha business for more than a century and a half. The latest batch of Misdo Meets Gion Tsujiri donuts just went on sale this week, so we rushed out to perform our solemn duty of eating all five of the new sweets, starting with the Pon de Double Uji Matcha.

This is an evolved version of Mister Donut’s Pon de Ring donuts. Not only do you get a matcha chocolate glaze, green tea is also kneaded into the dough too, using ichiban tsumami (first-picking) matcha for an extra luxurious taste.

If you want to get even fancier, there’s also the Pon de Zaku Matcha Kinako (242 yen).

Zaku is the Japanese onomatopoeia for crunchiness, and that comes in the form of a crunchy coating of kinako (roasted soybean powder). Coupled with the moist softness of the donut itself, it makes for a compellingly contrasting consistency.

Also doubling up on the Japanese ingredients is the Pon de Uji Matcha Kokuto Warabimochi (242 yen).

Kokuto is what Japan calls brown sugar, and while that marque ingredient might not be immediately apparent from the outside, which is dusted in non-crunchy kinako…

…on the inside of this sandwich-style donut you’ll discover rings of matcha whipped cream and jiggly brown sugar warabimochi. So instead of the crunch giving way to softness that we experienced with the Pon de Zaku Matcha Kinako, here we have softness with a chewy center, an equally attractive transition.

Moving up to the premium members of the lineup, we come to the Uji Matcha Chestnut Azuki (275 yen).

This one ticks several boxes on the donut recipe option list, with a matcha chocolate glaze, sandwich-style construction, and a filling of azuki (sweet red bean paste) and candied chestnut paste.

The flavors are delicious, but what really floored us was the texture, which somehow has the enticing crumbliness of an old-fashioned donut mixed with the airiness of a French cruller. We’re not sure how Mister Donut achieved this, but the result feels extra classy.

Finally, we come to the Uji Matcha-zukushi (275 yen), which translates loosely to “All the Uji Matcha.”

Covered in powdered matcha, this is a donut that immediately makes a visual promise about how it’s going to taste, and then delivers on it 100 percent. The amount of matcha gives it an unabashed bitterness in its flavor profile, but the sweetness of the thick layer of matcha whipped cream and center filling of matcha warabimochi provide plenty of sweetness to play with your taste buds too.

▼ Yes, there’s so much matcha involved that they had to use the donut’s hole to fit it all in.

So that’s Mister Donut going five for five with Misdo Meets Gion Tsujiri lineup, so you’ll want to start planning how to fit them all into your snacking schedule during their stay on the menu, which will be lasting until late May.

Photos © SoraNews24
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