A coffee shop in Chiba is combining one of Japan's most popular summer sweets with soba for coffee gelatin soba noodles.

In Japan, one popular dessert found everywhere from convenience stores to hotel buffets is coffee jelly, a gelatinous treat which consists of sweetened coffee mixed with agar jelly and often topped with cream of condensed milk.

Outside of desserts, a popular traditional dish to enjoy during the hot and humid summer season is zaru soba, or chilled soba (buckwheat) noodles, served with a soy sauce-based dipping sauce called tsuyu.

As you might imagine, while both popular treats to enjoy during the summer, soba and coffee jelly are not particularly a natural flavor combination. Chiba-based coffee house Tanuki Coffee may change your mind, however, with a new concoction that has foodies in Japan buzzing this summer. Customers looking to slurp up a cool and refreshing reprieve from the heat can do so with the coffee houses's specialty chilled Coffee Jelly Noodles.

Tanuki Coffee says the summer dish, served with chopsticks just like zaru soba, has a balanced profile of sweet and sour flavor, with a rich coffee aftertaste. The "noodles" are made from extracting coffee from the Tanuki's house French press brew, and then gelatinizing them into soba-like strips of coffee jelly. As these sweet coffee noodles probably wouldn't be a good match with the traditional dipping sauce, tsuyu is replaced with a tarty blueberry syrup.

Those who try out the coffee flavored dessert take on the traditional Japanese dish can treat themselves to a second dessert serving with tanuki-yaki, cute tanuki shaped pastries filled with red bean paste.

Tanuki Coffee will begin offering the item on their menu from June 29th fro 650 yen. You can find access information below, or just look for the cute tanuki store logo.

[TANUKI COFFEE]

Location: 1-26-9 Gion, Kisarazu City, Chiba Prefecture 292-0052

(3 minutes walk from JR Kururi Line Gion Station)


By - Big Neko.