Summer 2024 BEST 10 roadside station soft serve ice cream in Kyushu

Summer 2024 BEST 10 roadside station soft serve ice cream in Kyushu

The summer of 2024 is here! It is going to be extremely hot again this year. This is the time to enjoy soft serve ice cream at a roadside station! In this issue, we will introduce you to 10 stations that offer soft-serve ice cream made from local specialty fruits and ice cream that looks great on Instagram. Some of them are eligible for discount coupons in the official Kyushu-Okinawa Roadside Stations Stamp Book, so if you have a stamp book, be sure to check it out! (All prices include tax)

Roadside Station Ukiha: Cow's Milk Soft 400 yen

The naming is simple and straightforward. As the station is located in Ukiha, the village of fruits, it offers soft-serve ice cream using seasonal fruits, but the base of the ice cream is this milk soft-serve. The raw milk is purchased from Matsuno Farm, a local dairy farmer. Matsuno Farm's milk has a reputation for being refreshing and sweet at the same time. Indeed, the milk soft serve is rich but not cloying. The aftertaste is refreshing. The taste is simple and never gets boring. That is why it goes well with any fruit.

Roadside Station Kurume Mirukii soft serve ice cream 420 yen

Soft serve ice cream from the station's take-out café, Yutaatto Cafe maimai. The raw milk used is "Ito Monogatari" from Itoshima Milk Plants, a well-known brand in Itoshima City. It is pasteurized milk produced by dairy farmers in Itoshima. This is combined with fresh cream and sugar according to the company's secret golden ratio. Then, an Italian soft serve ice cream machine, Carpigiani, is used to create a smooth and fine soft serve ice cream. It is smooth to the palate, gentle and delicate, and conveys the deliciousness of milk.

Roadside Station Tachibana Salted Yamecha green powdered tea soft serve ice cream 350 yen

Sold at HIDE, a hamburger and hamburger store in the station food court. Matcha green tea soft serve ice cream is topped with powder mixed with local Yamecha tea powder and salt from Nagasaki. The rich taste and bitterness of the matcha, a hint of saltiness, and the natural sweetness of the soft serve ice cream are intricately intertwined. A sweet matcha soft serve ice cream is unlikely. As expected, it won first place in the 2018 "Michi no Eki Soft Serve Ice Cream General Election.

Michi-no-eki Harazuru, grape soft serve ice cream, 300 yen

Harazuru Roadside Station offers a wide variety of seasonal fruits such as persimmons, pears, and grapes. There are also many sightseeing farms in the area that offer grape picking, and from August to October, visitors can experience the harvesting of Pione grapes, Cheinmuscat grapes, and Kyoho grapes. The purple grape soft serve ice cream made from the juice of these grapes is a regular item at the station. You can enjoy the unique taste of Kyoho grapes, such as a deep, rich sweetness and a hint of sourness. When it comes to grape soft-serve ice cream, you can't go wrong with Kyoho grapes because they are the "king of grapes.

Roadside Station Nanaki Melon Dome, fresh green melon soft serve, 500 yen

If you are going to eat soft-serve ice cream at this station, it must be melon soft-serve ice cream. There are two types of melon soft-serve ice cream: green melon, which is available year-round, and red melon, which is only available seasonally. The melon pulp, which is purchased directly from farmers, is crushed into small pieces, frozen, and mixed with milk soft serve ice cream upon order. The texture is a bit like sherbet, and you can taste the texture of the melon pulp. Incidentally, there is also a sorbet, which is made with melon juice.

Roadside Station Oguni Oguni Jersey milk soft serve ice cream 400 yen

Oguni Town is one of the few places in Japan where Jersey cows are raised. Although smaller than Holsteins and inferior in milk production, the cows are milked to produce rich, thick, sweet milk. At "OGUNIYA JERSEY" adjacent to the roadside station, visitors can taste freshly squeezed Jersey milk soft serve ice cream. The taste is outstanding in terms of richness and depth. It also has a nostalgic taste. It is not sticky sweet, but still has a mild taste.

Roadside Station Asaji Blue Bee Ruri Soft ¥450

It is a photogenic soft serve ice cream. Its contents are also romantic and full of dreams. The pale blue soft serve ice cream is made from the extract of the flower of the butterfly pea, a leguminous plant. The blue jelly that accompanies the soft serve is made with the same ingredients, including kabosu to give it a reddish-blue color. The color is a replica of the hydrangea at the nearby Fukouji Temple. It is then topped with honey from Japanese honeybees. The name "blue bee" comes from the discovery of blue bees at a local herb farm called "Holy Basil Farm. This bee, an endangered species in Oita Prefecture, is also said to be a blue bee that brings happiness. It will make you happy with soft-serve ice cream!

Roadside Station Ebino: Fully ripe kumquat soft serve ice cream, 300 yen

Kumquat is one of the specialties of Miyazaki Prefecture. The kumquat with the largest fruit and much higher sugar content is named "fully ripe kumquat happen to be". This soft serve ice cream is made from the most premium kumquat of all the kumquats grown in Miyazaki Prefecture, and is sold only at roadside stations. It has a light orange color, a rich sweetness with a sugar content of 18 degrees, and the freshness of the kumquat spreads in the mouth. The mouth feel is somewhat similar to that of a sherbet, and the presence of the fruit juice can be felt.

Roadside Station Takachiho Apple Mango Soft Ice Cream 450 yen

Apple mango soft serve ice cream, sold at the restaurant attached to the roadside station, is served high in a swirl on a cone. This is a must for soft serve ice cream lovers. The bright orange-yellow soft serve ice cream towers above the rest! And that is because it is an apple mango, the fruit that Miyazaki, a tropical country, is proud of. The apple mango has the richest sweetness and mellow aroma of all mangoes, and the amount of mango is enough to satisfy your appetite. The taste of apple mango melts in your mouth with a slight sherbet-like texture.

Roadside Station Aounbashi: Kama-iricha (roasted green tea) soft serve ice cream, 400 yen

Kama-iricha" refers to tea that is roasted by stirring tea leaves in a kettle instead of steaming them during the tea manufacturing process. Only 1% of all tea is made in Japan, and it is only produced in a few places such as Kumamoto and Miyazaki prefectures. In other words, it is a very rare green tea. This soft serve ice cream made with kettle roasted tea from Isshinen, a local organic tea farm, has a very rich flavor. The dry bitterness of the tea, which is different from that of matcha, coexists with the sweetness of the milk soft serve. The strong aroma of the tea is also said to be a characteristic of kettle roasted tea. It is a soft-serve ice cream for adults that is popular among connoisseurs.

You should definitely try it when you stop by a roadside station in Kyushu.
We introduced the roadside station's specialty soft-serve ice cream!