Kyoto Veneto Cho-Berry-Cha Strawberry Chocolate Matcha Cookie

Two matcha langue de chat biscuits with a strawberry white chocolate between them, and the filling is where Kyoto Veneto has done the unexpected work: amaou strawberry powder and mascarpone, blended into white chocolate.

Mascarpone is the Italian cream cheese behind tiramisu, and putting it inside a Kyoto matcha sweet is deliberate — Kyoto Veneto builds its whole range around Italian and Japanese confectionery technique meeting in the middle, which is also where the brand gets its name.

The flavours arrive in sequence.

Uji matcha leads from the biscuit, dry and faintly bitter, with the toasted note that langue de chat develops in the oven.

The amaou comes next — the premium Fukuoka strawberry, deep crimson and balanced between sweetness and acidity — carried in white chocolate that would be simply sweet without it.

Then the mascarpone, which rounds everything off and keeps the chocolate from setting hard on the palate.

There are cornflakes worked into the filling as well, so the bite is zakuzaku: a coarse, emphatic crunch rather than the clean snap of a plain langue de chat.

The name is a joke, and a dated one.

Chō-beri-ba and chō-beri-gū were 1990s Japanese schoolgirl slang, compressed from very bad and very good, and Kyoto Veneto has bent the ending into cha, the word for tea.

Pieces are individually wrapped in boxes of 6 or 12, with a 180-day shelf life, which is why these sell as Kyoto souvenirs and small gifts.

Uji, just south of Kyoto, has been Japan’s benchmark tea region since the Muromachi period.

About this item
Item Name : Cho-Berry-Cha
Brand : Kyoto Veneto
Item Form : Semi-Chocolate
Allergens: Wheat, egg, milk, soybean, almond
Number of Items : 6, 12 Counts (Box of 1)