Several years ago (about 6 I think), I went with my family to visit Japan for the first time with our close family friends who speak Japanese and helped us get around. That’s where I really first started to fall in love with Japanese culture and food, especially matcha. Little did I know that my relationship with matcha would get so complicated.
There was this matcha ice cream that 7-11 in Japan sold, and I would get it often because they don’t sell it in the states. I remember it was better than any other generic matcha ice cream I had eaten before, and for a cheap convenience store ice cream, it was so worth every penny. It was one of the things I did not look forward to leaving behind in Japan.
I kept the good memories of 7-11 matcha in my mind when I returned to America, and for six grueling years I tried to find a matcha ice cream to match(a) the one in Japan, but alas, none could compare. I tried so many different matcha ice cream brands and stores but they didn’t have the same perfect concentration as the 7-11 so they tasted like vanilla, and they were all super expensive. I wanted to return to Japan to reunite with the 7-11 matcha ice cream.
Presently, I am back in Japan and have visited three different 7-11s and I cannot find the matcha ice cream ANYWHERE. I’m not one to actively seek out sweets because I’m not much of a sugar fan, but this is the one thing I have looked forward to for so long.
I was curious to see if the matcha ice cream was discontinued because I saw that they still carry the milk vanilla flavor but I couldn’t find anything online so I’m starting to think that the matcha flavor of 7-11 ice cream never existed. Am I going crazy??