We taste-test the entire lineup of joy-inducing summertime blue-green sweets.

We’re at a special spot in Japan’s seasonal sweets schedule right now: mint chocolate season. Unlike some supply-triggered flavors, like the abundance of sweet potato confectionaries in the fall, mint chocolate season is a demand-driven phenomena, as cravings for sweet treats overlap with the appeal of refreshingly cooling sensations (hence the mint) during Japan’s hot and humid summer.

Japanese convenience store chain Family Mart has gotten into the spirit of the season in a big way, releasing more than a baker’s dozen of new mint chocolate sweets this week, which we, as dedicated dessert journalists, taste-tested ASAP. Let’s take a look at all 14 as we lead up to our picks for the top five of the bunch.

● Mint Chocolate Roll Cake (180 yen [US$1.25])

Roll cakes, with a long strip of sponge cake is used to roll up a creamy filling, are a sweets staple in Japan, and here you get soft chocolate sponge around mint cream.

● Chocolate Mint-flavor Melon Bread (168 yen)

Japan’s melon bread doesn’t actually have a fruity flavor, and instead gets its name from how its bumpy surface resembles a musk melon rind. Instead, melon bread is a half-sphere bun with a slightly crunchy cookie-like crust, and this one has mint whipped cream and chocolate chips at its core.

● Mint Chocolate Tart (190 yen)

This one is for the mint chocolate experts out there, as the sharp mint notes contrast dramatically with the bitter chocolate crust, but if you can handle the combination, there’s a lot to like here.

● Mint Chocolate Cookies (150 yen)

In Japanese, these are called the Torokeru Choco Mint Cookies, with torokeru meaning “melty.” While they don’t exactly liquify, when you bite into them there’s an initial touch of crispness which then gives way to a light airiness, so maybe a less literal translation like “captivatingly crumby cookies” paints a better picture.

● Country Ma’am Mini Choco Mint (156 yen)

Country Ma’am is a brand of bite-sized cookies made by Yokohama-based confectioner Fujiya, who knows a thing or two about making great cookies. Though Country Ma’am itself isn’t exclusive to Family Mart, this special mint chocolate version is.

● Choco Mint Drink (258 yen)

Family Mart’s customary sweets lineup includes a chocolatey dessert beverage, and now they’ve added a splash of mint flavor to the recipe for a rich yet refreshing result

● Choco Mint Waffle Cone (338 yen)

Mint chocolate ice cream is already something to get excited about, but when you put a scoop in a cocoa chocolate waffle cone and pour on chocolate sauce, it gets even better.

● Taberu Bokujo Choco Mint (278 yen)

Taberu Bokujo, which translates to “edible dairy farm,” straddles the line between ice cream and a milk shake, with Hokkaido-sourced milk, slushy cream base, and whipped cream on top. This is the brand’s first time to do a mint chocolate flavor, and it’s a stellar success, with the chocolate chips and cocoa cookie bits giving it some extra texture too.

● Gisshiri Manzoku Choco Mint (270)

They aren’t trying to be clever here, but this large-sized cup of mint chocolate ice definitely is both gisshiri (“stuffed full”) and leaves us feeling manzoku (“satisfied”), showing that sometimes there’s nothing wrong with taking the orthodox approach to sweets-based happiness.

All of the items we’ve looked at so far tasted great, but now we come to the mint chocolate crème de la mint chocolate crème, with our taste-tester Yayoi Saginomiya’s picks for the top five Family Mart mint chocolate sweets.

5. Chocolate Mint Crunch (198 yen)

This one was a big, and happy, surprise. The cookie bits have a stimulating crunch that it feels great to chomp through, and combined with the sharp burst of strong mint, they’re an excellent eye-opening pick-me-up to munch on if you feel your energy levels starting to sag at work in the late afternoon.

4. Chocolate Mint Flavor Steamed Cake (145 yen)

Moist without being mushy, and with an excellent balance of mint and chocolate notes, this is everything a choco mint fan could want in a steamed cake, especially if you chill it in your fridge for a bit before eating.

3. Mint Chocolate Cream Puff (228 yen)

Yes, there are flakes of chocolate mixed into the mint cream filling, but what really makes this work is the mint-streaked chocolate coating on the top half of the cream puff, which basically turns this into a delicious circular éclair.

2. Chocolate Mint Frappe (360 yen)

Family Mart’s Frappes are unique dessert beverages where you grab a cup that’s partially filled with a frozen cream base from the freezer section, then bring it to a self-service machine near the register to add the milk that turns it into a drink. In the past they’ve offered matcha and Pokémon Frappes, and this new flavor is made with early-harvest peppermint, plucked before any flowers start to bloom among the plants’ leaves and sully the purity of their flavor. Slushy, milky, sweet, and, of course, very minty, this one almost made it to the top of Yayoi’s list, but that honor goes to…

1. Chocolate and Mint Chocolate Whip Cream Sandwich (375 yen)

Yep, Family Mart made a mint chocolate sandwich! It’s not quite as crazy a concept as it sounds, though. Fruit sandwiches, in which sliced fruit and whipped cream are used as sandwich fillings, are already a thing in Japan, so Family Mart has simply ditched the fruit to make room for more cream with mint and chocolate mixed in.

Since they’re using soft pieces of white bread with the crusts sliced off, there’s no wheaty bitterness to get in the way, but with bread also being less sweet than cake, there’s no other-source sugariness to obscure the pure deliciousness of the mint and chocolate, and Yayoi wholeheartedly recommends this dessert sandwich to all fellow members of the Mint Chococratic Party.

The entire lineup is on sale at Family Mart now as part of the chain’s Mint Chocolate Fair for an unspecified limited time, so you totally have our blessing to buy each and every one of them in a single shopping run like we did.

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