Historic Japanese teahouse Itohkyuemon have truly perfected the art of portraying a season through a matcha parfait. The green tea purveyors deal in leaves procured from Kyoto’s matcha paradise, Uji, and their luxury tea has been used to create hydrangea creations for rainy season and 'momiji' desserts for autumn.

Their creations for the beginning of the year, their first seasonal parfaits of the year in fact, are inspired by two tastes which complement green tea for a matcha made in heaven.

The first is perfect for the season of Valentine’s Day with sweet chocolate to offset the bitter green tea. Not just matcha, Itohkyuemon flex their green tea expertise with another type of brew, hojicha (roasted green tea) which can be found in the toppings. There’s also a hint of strawberry with the teahouse’s famous strawberry matcha truffle, ‘Ochamesan’.

But to celebrate the new year there’s more than just a hint of strawberries in the elaborate ‘Strawberry Matcha Parfait’.

The combination of sweet and sour strawberries with fragrant and bitter matcha is taken even further with the ‘Strawberry Matcha Sweets Plate’ which consists of seven different types of dessert.

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 branch.