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New Yukimi Daifuku mochi ice cream flavour is inspired by…Ogura Toast?

Oona McGee Jun 22, 2023
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Tie-up with Japanese cafe chain Komeda Coffee gives birth to a buttery new product.

In Japan, Yukimi Daifuku is the go-to brand for mochi ice creams, with the thin mochi (sticky rice) coating and sweet centres making them a hit with ice cream lovers around the country and internationally.

Every now and then the brand, whose name beautifully translates to “Snow-Viewing Rice Cakes“, comes out with some special limited-edition flavours for the local market, and its latest limited-time release is particularly unusual as it takes its flavour cues from an unlikely source: Ogura toast.

Ogura toast is toast topped with butter or margarine and a layer of Ogura-an (a sweet paste made with both mashed and whole red beans), and it’s a local specialty of Aichi Prefecture so famous it once appeared as McDonald’s hotcakes.

However, its roots can be traced back to Komeda Coffee, an Aichi-born coffeehouse chain that now has branches all around the country. Komeda is said to have been responsible for making Ogura toast nationwide and it remains a popular item on its menus today.

▼ One of the oldest branches of the chain in Nagoya dates back to 1972.

Our reporter Anji Tabata is a big fan of Ogura Toast, so she couldn’t wait to try the new ice cream version when pre-sales began at Japanese convenience stores on 20 June.

The first thing to catch her eye was the packaging, which included not only the mouthwatering visuals of ice cream topped with butter and red bean paste, but a nod to the red brick exterior seen on many of the modern Komeda establishments.

Peeling off the top packaging, Anji could see the outside of the ice creams were a beautiful shade of buttery yellow, instead of their usual snowy white, and the dark red bean centres were almost visible through the mochi.

Anji pushed the pink stick through one of the ice creams and lifted it to her mouth for a taste. The mochi was delightfully soft and chewy, but what really impressed her was the flavour of the ice cream, which made her toes curl with delight. The quality of the butter ice cream was spectacular, enveloping the Ogura bean paste with a buttery richness that was so pronounced its aroma filled her nostrils, leaving her with the elegant aftertaste of butter.

However, it wasn’t just the butter ice cream that stood out, as all the components — red bean paste, butter ice cream, and mochi — complemented each other so harmoniously she wanted to eat a dozen of them.

Despite the rich flavours, these ice creams were incredibly easy to eat as they were neither too sweet nor too heavy.

▼ They were juuuust right.

After eating both servings, Anji immediately wanted more of them, saying they were almost too good to be true. That’s high praise from an Ogura Toast lover, so if you come across them in the freezer section in Japan, be sure to give them a try. And if you decide to add them to a slice of cheese toast for even more decadence, we won’t judge you!

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[ Read in Japanese ]