Itohkyuemon, a historic Japanese teahouse, has got a matcha parfait for every season. It takes a lot of matcha expertise to distil the essence of a season into one single dessert, and Itohkyuemon have been in the green tea game since 1833. They’ve previously come up with gorgeous parfait creations to express rainy season through hydrangeas, and autumn through the beauty of fallen leaves.

Their winter offering is a classic combination of matcha and strawberries. Strawberries can often be seen during winter in Japan, perhaps because they are found on Japanese Christmas cakes. These sweet and sour strawberries make for a perfect companion to fragrant and bitter matcha, resulting in the ‘Strawberry Matcha Parfait’.

The red, white and green colour scheme looks pretty festive, and the elaborate parfait holds plenty of components with different tastes and textures. There’s squishy white mochi, bitter matcha jelly, and fresh strawberries among other ingredients. The crowning glory is the pink meringue topping.

Not only that but their ‘Strawberry Matcha Sweets Plate’ is back too, which includes eight different desserts to sample.

These timely treats can only be sampled in selected Kyoto locations of Itohkyuemon, namely the Uji Honten (main store), JR Uji station, and Gion Shijo branches. The parfait will be around for just a limited time while the sweets plate will be on the menu until around the end of February.


By - grape Japan editorial staff.