Amazing AOMORI

This café in Hachinohe City offers almost a dozen flavors of soft serve, the most popular being makiba (Japanese for “pasture”) made with fresh cream. Other popular flavors include melon, banana, and matcha. You can also add toppings like caramel or chocolate sauce and combine two flavors into a “twin.” Many visitors are curious as to the origins of the shop’s rather unusual-sounding name, which is actually derived from the Hulunbuir grasslands, a vast prairie in northeastern Inner Mongolia. Although very different from the Inner Mongolian steppe, the café is set amid the no-less stunning natural scenery of the Tanesashi Coast, and picturesque views can be enjoyed from the nearby Ashigezaki Observation Deck. 

This workshop located amid the rolling hills of the Shimokita Peninsula sells delicious dairy products made with fresh milk from cows kept in a free-stall dairy barn, a layout that reduces cows’ stress. The soft-serve ice cream comes in flavors like milk, mocha, and even wine! Gelato, yogurt drinks and liqueur, and other exclusive sweets are also available for purchase. If you time your visit right, you might even get to see adorable baby goats on the premises!

With its distinctive red exterior evoking a rustic barn, this café on the premises of Abitania Jersey Farm in Ajigasawa Town specializes in beef and dairy products made from its namesake Jersey cattle. In addition to Jersey beef sandwiches and milk bread, try its exclusive soft serve. You can really taste the richness of the milk in this farm-fresh ice cream.

Located directly adjacent to the Oirase Field Museum, the café on the second floor of this facility sells soft-serve ice cream inspired by the lush green moss of the Oirase Gorge. If the thought of eating moss is less than appealing to you, don’t worry! The “mossy” appearance is actually achieved with matcha powder and chocolate syrup representing the gorge’s fallen logs. Now, that does sound tasty!

Yokohama Town is famous for its canola fields that produce a sprawling carpet of bright yellow blossoms each spring, when the town hosts its Canola Blossom Festival. But at this roadside station, you can enjoy rich soft-serve ice cream made with canola and raw milk from local farms year-round. The shoots, buds, and leaves of the canola plant give the ice cream a pale yellowish green color, while canola honey lends it a mild sweetness.

This farmers’ market is the home of the exclusive soft-serve ice cream “Hachinohe Farmers Soft Serve,” which is made with raw milk from Shingo Village, the birthplace of dairy farming in Aomori Prefecture, and comes with one Nambu Sembei, a traditional local rice cracker. The soft serve and the slightly salty rice cracker go great together, and you’ll also definitely want to try the exclusive topping sauces (sold separately). There are six flavors: apple, blueberry, carrot, tomato, strawberry, and Hachinohe Wine, all made with fruits and vegetables from the Hachinohe area. You can choose one favorite sauce as a topping or combine multiple flavors. The farmers’ market is located right next to JR Hachinohe Station, which is also a stop on the Shinkansen, so you can casually drop in while waiting for a train.

On your next visit to Aomori Prefecture, be sure to try some of its delicious soft-serve ice cream! And don’t forget to take a picture, because these sweet treats look as great as they taste!