Fields, farms and sheep in Tokachi. (©Agnes Tandler)
The giant cat pushes its paws impatiently against the screen door. It looks like it is trying to escape. "It's a Maine Coon," the female owner of the cat cafe explains. The felines in residence, however, are not the main attraction at Catwings, a cafe in Obihiro, Hokkaido.
This summer, the cafe is offering a special treat for humans: a cat-themed soft serve ice cream. It comes with cat ears and little paws, which the owner carefully arranges. The cuteness factor seems hard to match by the cats that are just waiting to be stroked and admired.
Catwings is one of the 171 shops in Hokkaido that take part in the annual Hokkaido Soft Serve Rally. The "Melting Happiness Tour" runs for three months from June to September. Ice cream aficionados can collect stamps and win prizes.
No summer in Hokkaido is complete without soft serve ice cream. Famously, even roadside stations in Japan's northernmost prefecture offer the sweet, buttery coolness made from fresh Hokkaido milk.
But for the best selection, the soft serve expert must travel deep inland to Tokachi, the top milk-producing region in Hokkaido. It is here where one can find the best soft ice cream in cups and cones.
Flowing with Sugar and Milk
Soft serve is everywhere in Tokachi. Shortly after 10 AM, more than 20 people are happily eating ice cream in the lush garden of Tokachi Toteppo Factory, a former railway site just ten minutes away from Obihiro station.
Located in the center of Tokachi, the cafe offers soft serve from its own farm. The region has about three times more cows and cattle than human inhabitants, so there is enough milk to go around. Apart from dairy, the area is renowned for wheat, potatoes, beans, and sugar beets. No wonder that at least three major national confectionery companies have their headquarters in Obihiro, the urban center of the region.
The town with around 160,000 inhabitants might not be the most beautiful sightseeing destination, but its ice cream, gardens, wayside roses, and greenery make up for it.
Cranberry, one of Obihiro's famous confectionery shops, has been taking sweet potatoes to another level for more than 50 years. People are lining up for its large sweet potato cakes made from eggs, butter, sweet potato, and custard cream. Cranberry also serves sweet potato soft serve for those with smaller sugar cravings.
A couple of streets away, Rokkatei, another Obihiro sweet shop, keeps its soft serve ingredients simple with just sugar and raw milk. There seems to be barely a place in town that does not offer soft serve.
Agriculture Legacy
Manabe Garden, a privately owned garden with rare trees imported from Northern Europe and Canada, is no exception. Visitors can enjoy coffee and soft serve surrounded by roses and conifer trees.
Even the students of Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine enjoy ice cream breaks between lectures. The large tree-lined campus has its own farm-to-table cafe to cater to the need. In a nod to its academic focus, the university's soft serve comes with a little cookie in the shape of a cow.
Twenty-year-old Zen, who has just parked his bicycle outside, has come to get some soft serve. He comes from a farming family. He and his parents grow vegetables like beans, potatoes, and corn on their farm close to the university.
"It's hard work," Zen admits while he eats his ice cream. "I would rather study computer programming than agriculture." Eighty years ago, at the end of World War II, evacuees from urban centers and repatriates from Manchuria and Sakhalin settled in Tokachi and cultivated the wasteland and remote areas.
Now, people here move from Tokachi to bigger places like Tokyo, Osaka, or even Australia. Zen dreams of moving to Australia — but he might miss Tokachi's soft serve.
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Author: Agnes Tandler
