Cha-no-wa

I think it’s safe to say that the obsession with anything green tea has hit Hong Kong — hard. Every other Instagram picture I see of dessert is matcha flavored, and there are tons of new matcha cafés around. My friends and I are no exception to this obsession — we, too, adore matcha! We’ve been eyeing the matcha Swiss roll cake from Cha-​no-​wa for a while but never bought it because it’s pretty expensive — $ 150 for a roll that isn’t even that big. But because it was one of our friend’s birthday, we decided to finally splurge and buy it. I have no regrets!
I bought the Swiss roll at the Cha-​no-​wa in the Times Square Citysuper. The sales ladies were very nice and let me try their green tea jelly, which was good, but not really my kind of thing. It definitely had a very nice matcha flavor, but to me, jelly is supposed to be refreshing and sweet, and this matcha jelly just wasn’t. Even though I knew I was going to buy the Swiss roll, I asked to have a sample of it anyway. The sample was actually pretty generous — I wasn’t expecting that because the Swiss roll is quite expensive. From that sample, I was pretty impressed with how strong the matcha flavor was and I couldn’t wait to have more of it tomorrow!
My friends were all really excited to finally try the Swiss roll, and I hyped them up by telling them how great it was just from the sample I tried. We cut the roll into four equal pieces. Even though this wasn’t my first taste of it, it was still heavenly — the Swiss roll itself is extremely soft — it’s not just soft, but melt-​in-​your-​mouth kind of soft. It’s not loose though, and doesn’t really fall apart when you’re picking it up with a fork. In between the layers of the rolls is matcha cream. This cream is amazing — it’s a very dense matcha taste and is like nothing that I’ve ever tasted before. Together with the texture of the roll, this is easily one of the best matcha desserts I’ve ever had!
Delicious? No doubt. But worth the price? Hmm… that’s debatable. We split the Swiss roll into four equal portions, and each was actually pretty small — I could have half of the roll in one sitting, no problem! This definitely is a pricey dessert but it’s not just any old Swiss roll! Cha-no-wa’s really set the standards. Any green tea cake I have from here on out is just going to be underwhelming. If you’re a matcha fan, I highly suggest you buy this at least once!