Green tea, matcha, nokcha, by any name this delicious earthy and fragrant flavor helps justify our calorie intake for its powerful antioxidant and metabolism-boosting properties. In South Korea, you can find many bakeries or coffee shops proposing matcha green tea desserts, but you may wonder which one to try.
Venture outside of O’sulloc Tea House and find yourself in Seoul’s green tea sweet paradise with these recommendations.
10. Green Tea Cream Bread | Fuhaha Cream Bread
A wildly popular bakery in the backstreets of Hongdae, Fuhaha Cream bread transforms French brioche dough into a magical, fluffy wonder.
After the dough is fermented for 24 hours to give it maximum softness, the bread is pumped full of 100% real fresh cream with the flavor infusion of your choice. Seasonal flavors may vary but green tea (or nokcha) cream bread is a classic here.
The green tea cream is vibrant in color and has a sweeter, more fragrant taste than a bitter, earthy tone one. This place is very affordable to satisfy your sweets cravings with all cream bread priced at 2,0000W. If you buy 8 or more of them, the store employees will wrap them up in a beautifully packaged box for you as well.
Additional flavors include sweet salt, real strawberry, fresh milk, and red bean varieties.
9. Green Tea Tiramisu | Anthracite Coffee Roasters
A matchalicious play off of the Italian classic, tiramisu.
A dense base of the green tea cake is soaked in a bit of matcha with sweet red bean paste and whipped cream and mascarpone concoction layered on top. Finally, the baristas top it off with a healthy dusting of matcha powder for an earthy finish.
This is the perfect creamy cake to share over a cup of coffee, the green tea cake holds up well and pairs nicely with an espresso-based drink from this famed coffee roaster. Also, the addition of red bean paste adds a nice touch of sweetness to the dessert.
Overall, it is a great, layered balance of creamy fluff, sweet red bean paste, and dense and earthy matcha flavor. For those looking for something a bit smaller, the cafe also serves two-bite matcha financiers.
8. Green Tea Choux | Pain Choux
Located in the Konkuk University area, this simple and cheap Japanese dessert place often has lines at the door for its made-to-order cream choux.
Crispy and chewy choux shells are made fresh, and then filled with a generous pump of custard cream when you place your order at the counter. The Green Tea Choux here is filled with a vibrantly green custard cream that plays on the sweeter side of things.
The Choux crust is a wonderful combination of buttery crispy bits and a spongy interior, and the choux cream practically overflows as you bite into this delicious dessert.
Additional flavors include cream cheese, sweet potato, chocolate, and original custard.
7. Matcha Glacé Madeleine | Etoile
You will smell this beautiful little French bakery before you see it.
Located in a posh avenue of Apgujeong, this bakery and cafe specializes in Madeleines, and French butter cakes about the length of your finger. The fragrant scent of butter and fillé pastry wafts down the road, so you can’t help but pick up more than a few croissants and cakes on your way to the subway.
The Matcha Madeleine features a green tea-infused cake base with a glossy matcha icing finish. It melts in your mouth well, with a focus on freshness and texture rather than sugar content and appearance.
Traditional Lemon, Almond, and Original Butter Madeleines are available as well.
6. Matcha Affogato | Alegria Coffee Roasters
This is Alegria Coffee Roaster’s third branch and the one most centrally located in Seoul. While the cafe space may be small, they serve up a mean matcha-indulgent affogato that is especially unique in such a coffee-obsessed country.
Hand-whipped, bitter matcha is heated and poured over a generous scoop of green tea ice cream, combining something good with something even better.
Single-origin, hand drip coffee as well as espresso-based affogato and ice cream lattes are on the menu as well.
5. Green Tea Patbingsu | Sulbing Cafe
One of the famous desserts chains in South Korea, Sulbing Cafe proposes different kinds of bingsu (from chocolate to fruit-based bingsu) and of course, proposes a Green Tea Patbingsu.
To enjoy this, even more, this dessert, you should try it during a hot summer to cool yourself and take a break from the humid and hot weather.
You can find this chain all around Seoul this chain quite easily so don’t miss it in your next trip to Korea!
4. Green Tea Cheesecake | C27
This glamorous Garosugil cafe brands itself as ” a playground for women”, why grow up when there are copper balloons, arcade games, cheesecake-themed art pieces, and 27 different flavors of cheesecake to be had?
Sidle up to the counter and you’ll notice heavenly cheesecakes ranging from “M&M Chocolate with KitKat Crust” to “Camembert Cheese”, but our ultimate favorite will have to be the Green Tea.
The cheesecake had a full-bodied flavor with a layer of yummy sponge cake at the bottom. The texture is dense and rich with chilled heavy cream and a medley of sweet cheese, after applying some serious effort with your fork and transporting a bite to your mouth you’ll notice a delicious creamy taste before the sweetness hits.
3. Japanese Green Tea Cake | Amenohi Cafe
This quaint little cafe and coffee roasters serve up hand-drip coffee and handmade Japanese lunch/dessert menu from late afternoon to late evenings.
While the cafe’s decor and plating are understated, the world of Korean food bloggers unanimously swears by this place’s tea cakes.
The Green Tea Cake is especially popular with a moist, dense, rich slice of cake is accompanied by a dollop of whipped custard pudding and naturally sweetened red bean paste. The taste is sensational, and as the cake is made fresh every afternoon by the cafe’s Japanese owners there’s none of the refrigerated dryness that accompanies commercial cafe desserts.
2. Natural Green Tea Icecream | Sobok
The first branch of Sobok cafes first opened in Hongdae in 2014. This immensely popular Korean-fusion dessert cafe offers all-natural ice cream made with mixed brown rice and grain milk and sweetened with jocheong, a sweet rice syrup.
The creamy thickness of this ice cream is like nothing you have ever tasted before. Additionally, the complementary toppings of sweet pumpkin, dried persimmon, rice cakes, roasted sunflower seeds, and edible chrysanthemum flowers are an interesting divergence from sprinkles and perfectly paired with the green tea flavor.
Another plus of this ice cream is that it’s served in environmentally-friendly bowls made from corn. Their rice cake ice balls are also very popular so make sure to sample one on the side of your ice cream or order a separate bowl!
1. Nokcha Tart | Doll Doll Bakery
A brown butter cookie crust and lusciously creamy matcha filling place this tart at the very top of our list. The tarts are the “Best” item of Doll Doll Bakery, but they also offer green tea swirl bread and matcha cream stuffed muffins if you’re feeling like engaging in some meokbang.
This sweet is only for serious matcha lovers; the filling of the tart does not hold back the earthy taste induced by catechins extracted from the green tea leaves. The firm yet crumbly and sweet base help balance out the intensity of the cream.
While the bakery does not have sitting space, the tarts make a perfect dinner party gift or sweet treat to eat while exploring the Ewha university area.