TOKYO : Japanese company Nissei has introduced light yellow coloured, soft-serve ice cream to make customers happy as they taste the sophisticated sweetness and remember the traditional sweet culture of Japan.
It tastes like a sweet potato. Located in Tokyo’s Asakusa, “Funawa” is a traditional sweet shop. It is open with all safety measures against COVID-19.
“Imo-Yokan” which is usually made with sweet potato and sugar has been loved by the Japanese for generations. “Nissei” has supported “Funawa” to develop soft ice cream.
Haruaki Kukino, owner of Funawa said, “Our shop was founded in October 1902. We sold typical Japanese sweet “Imo Yokan”, which is made mainly by sweet potato. To revitalize Asakusa town, we thought about selling soft ice cream to introduce different products from Japanese sweets for sale at the front of the store. So, we came up with the idea of adding the taste of “Imo yokan” into the soft ice cream”.
“Imo-Yokan soft ice cream” is made by mixing the paste of Imo-Yokan with vanilla cream. It is important to choose a special type of cream to fit Imo-Yokan.
“Funawa” has undertaken many challenges to developing new tastes with the cooperation of soft ice cream maker “Nissei”.
Aki Suzuki, a staff at Funawa said, “During the development stage, depending on the type of vanilla, the taste of “Imo Yokan” was lost and the colour of “Imo Yokan” disappeared without colouring. However, through repeated trial and error, it became perfect, and you could feel the natural sweetness of the sweet potato. I hope our visitors enjoy the taste of Japanese sweet potato”.
Besides the cream, there are small pieces of Imo-Yokan. The natural tastes of sweet potato and cute appearance have gained a reputation on SNS.
A visitor said, “It has the taste of sweet potato yokan, and it is sweet and delicious”.
The collaboration between traditional sweet maker “Imo Yokan” and modern sweets “soft ice cream” offers a new style of sweets to foreign tourists in Japan. (ANI)
