Nanaya, a favourite ice cream shop of Tokyoites, claims to have the richest green tea gelato in the world.

Originally based in Fujieda city and Shizuoka city of Shizuoka prefecture, the store opened up a couple of Tokyo branches much to the delight of locals and tourists alike.

The store’s name ‘Nanaya’ is a reference to their seven matcha ice creams, which from 1 to 7 is like an ascending scale of intensity. Gelato number 1 is the mildest, and the famous number 7 is the boldest, bitterest flavour, only for matcha heavyweights.

In a new release, Nanaya are translating this scale of matcha into another foodstuff, just in time for Valentine’s Day.

They have brought their expertise and high quality matcha to the chocolate world, so chocoholics too can experience a never tasted before richness. Like the ice cream, chocolates 1 to 7 increase in intensity as you go along, and this flavour is reflected in the gradually deepening green-ness of the bars, forming the pretty gradient you can see in the photos.

(They do look suspiciously like chalk pastels.)

With a matcha concentration of 29.1%, the makers suspect that this is the richest green tea chocolate in existence. According to them, if the concentration is more than 29.1%, chocolate can't be formed anymore, so they are truly pushing the bars to their matcha limit. Number 7 is so dark green it's almost black.

Two of each matcha bars have been included, plus there's the special inclusion of two hojicha flavoured chocolate bars. Hojicha is a type of green tea which is made by roasting the leaves. It gives the tea a reddish brown colour and a kind of toasty flavour when infused.

Nanaya surely have the Valentine's Day market in mind if you look at the timing of the release. So if you've got a special matcha fan in your life, give them the most intense green tea chocolate experience money can buy!

Check out the Nanaya website (Japanese only) for a full list of branches.