Matcha Cafe Maiko Matcha soft serve with matcha powder and mochi: According to the Matcha Cafe Maiko website, the San Francisco shop located in the Japantown center is the first to open in the "American mainland," with an original location in Hawaii. Its matcha products are imported all the way from Harima Garden in Kyoto. While the menu features their matcha soft serve, they have a surprising variety of lattes, floats, and other beverage pairings as well. At $5.50, their soft serve is a bit steep for a single serving, but it has a concentrated herbal f... (read more) 3.5/5.0
recommended japantown sf dessert softserve icecream matchacafemaiko matcha soft serve powder mochi 3.5
Humphry Slocombe Malted milk chocolate ice cream: I had a nerve wracking week, with a lot of “hey, can we chat?” meetings with people at work. At the end of it, I found myself naturally walking to a Humphry Slocombe in the Ferry Building, a place I don’t go to frequently but realize now that I always went to when I needed a bit of comfort on my way home from work. It’s a reliable ice cream shop, uniquely San Franciscan with flavors that fall out of the ordinary. I sampled their POG, a passion fruit, orange, and guava sorbet (the toy also co... (read more) 3.5/5.0
recommended sf ferrybuilding humphryslocombe malted milk chocolate ice cream 3.5
FK Frozen Custard Black Sesame and Matcha White Chocolate Ice Cream: The last time I had ice cream from FK Frozen Custard, the brand was still named "Frozen Kuhsterd," and they were a food-truck-only business. Now they have a brick and mortar in the Lower Haight in SF, still offering a mix of classic flavors and asian-inspired options like black sesame, milk tea, and ube. I ordered one scoop with two flavors, which was generously sized and easily sharable – though I had the entire scoop for myself. (: My previous experience with Frozen Kuhsterd involved an ... (read more) 3.0/5.0
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iTea Matcha milk tea with boba and red bean: This matcha drink from iTea in SF contains red bean and boba as default toppings. While the matcha milk tea was decent, the red bean was heavily sweetened so that this 30% sweetness beverage tasted more like a normal 100% sweetened drink. Texturally, the red bean also seemed canned as it was slightly too soft. As a result, I’d recommend getting the drink but skipping the red bean topping. 2.5/5.0
drinks sf milktea itea matcha milk tea boba red bean 2.5 bubbletea
House Kombucha Ginger Fire Ginger and Green Tea with Hot Peppers: The first time I had kombucha six years ago, I found it so disgusting that I hadn't touched it since. But I do like ginger a lot, and this brand of House Kombucha was offered for free at work, so I decided to keep an open mind and give it a try. I expected it to have a very spicy flavor given the flames on the packaging, but it was much more mild (even if the heat built up a bit over time). Despite the lack of ginger heat, I was pleasantly surprised with the overall flavor, which was sligh... (read more) 3.5/5.0
recommended drinks sf housekombucha ginger fire green tea hot peppers 3.5
Humphry Slocombe Peanut butter and fudge ripple ice cream: On my way home from work yesterday, I had intended to stop by Ben and Jerry’s for free scoop day but found the line to be prohibitively long at an estimated 45 minutes. I decided it wasn’t worth the wait, but today, I still had ice cream on my mind, so I stopped by Humphrey Slocombe in the Ferry Building and purchased a $4.50 scoop of peanut butter fudge ripple ice cream. It was creamy and rich in a slightly moorish sort of way, with a classic Americana flavor more peanut butter than chocola... (read more) 3.5/5.0
recommended peanutbutter sf humphreyslocombe peanut butter fudge ripple ice cream 3.5 icecream