Japan: Nikko Coffee
Before we arrived in Nikko, I had all these grand plans to hike through the Senjogahara Marshland all the way to Yumoto Onsen. All my plans were completely derailed by the weather. The fog was so dense that we couldn't see the Akechidaira Ropeway station even though we were right in front of it:
I don't know what Jiejie expected to see when we got up to the observation deck, but I saw precisely what I'd expected: NOTHING.
We still gave the Kegon Waterfall a shot, but when we found the waterfall to be completely hidden by the fog (we could hear the water rushing though), we decided to cut our losses and head back to town.
There was only one more place we wanted to check out before we said farewell to Nikko. According to Jiejie's research, there are only seven places in Japan that serves kakigori (shaved ice) made with natural ice. Three are in Nikko.
Nikko Coffee is one of them:
Nikko Coffee is a cute little cafe inside a traditional Japanese house:
What makes natural ice kakigori so special is that the ice is harvested during the winter when the mountain springs freeze over. The kakigori made with this natural ice is soft and wispy, almost like cotton candy.
We ordered the anmitsu kakigori (¥1200 / $10.79):
It came with black honey, roasted soybean flour, adzuki beans, agar, condensed milk, and a scoop of vanilla ice cream:
Typically, I'm not a big fan of shaved ice because I don't like the feeling of crunching on ice chunks. That's just not a thing with the kakigori at Nikko Coffee. The ice is so fine that it melts immediately once it hits your tongue. If all shaved ice was made this way, I just might be willing to be converted.
Satisfied that we managed to check off at least one of our Nikko goals, we headed to the train station and switched our tickets for an earlier train back to Tokyo.
Too bad the weather refused to cooperate. I was really looking forward to all the natural wonders Nikko has to offer. Sigh. Maybe next time.
日光珈琲 御用邸通
栃木県日光市本町3-13
0288-53-2335
http://nikko-coffee.com/
I don't know what Jiejie expected to see when we got up to the observation deck, but I saw precisely what I'd expected: NOTHING.
We still gave the Kegon Waterfall a shot, but when we found the waterfall to be completely hidden by the fog (we could hear the water rushing though), we decided to cut our losses and head back to town.
There was only one more place we wanted to check out before we said farewell to Nikko. According to Jiejie's research, there are only seven places in Japan that serves kakigori (shaved ice) made with natural ice. Three are in Nikko.
Nikko Coffee is one of them:
Nikko Coffee is a cute little cafe inside a traditional Japanese house:
What makes natural ice kakigori so special is that the ice is harvested during the winter when the mountain springs freeze over. The kakigori made with this natural ice is soft and wispy, almost like cotton candy.
We ordered the anmitsu kakigori (¥1200 / $10.79):
It came with black honey, roasted soybean flour, adzuki beans, agar, condensed milk, and a scoop of vanilla ice cream:
For a fruity contrast, we also ordered the tochiotome (¥1000 / $8.99 with condensed milk), which was made with strawberry syrup:
Typically, I'm not a big fan of shaved ice because I don't like the feeling of crunching on ice chunks. That's just not a thing with the kakigori at Nikko Coffee. The ice is so fine that it melts immediately once it hits your tongue. If all shaved ice was made this way, I just might be willing to be converted.
Satisfied that we managed to check off at least one of our Nikko goals, we headed to the train station and switched our tickets for an earlier train back to Tokyo.
Too bad the weather refused to cooperate. I was really looking forward to all the natural wonders Nikko has to offer. Sigh. Maybe next time.
日光珈琲 御用邸通
栃木県日光市本町3-13
0288-53-2335
http://nikko-coffee.com/
Comments
Post a Comment