Hong Kong Has ‘Tear Gas’ Ice Cream Flavour That Promises A Spicy, Peppery Kick

Hong Kong Gelato Shop Uses Black Peppercorn To Create Tear Gas-Flavoured Ice Cream

They say music is a universal language that transcends all barriers. The melodious art form allows people to develop emotions that are just oh-so-relatable.

By this logic, ice cream should also be considered a universal language, since it can be used to “spark feels”.

And if anything, this one particular flavour of ice cream is sure to spark some emotion from customers.

Hong Kong ice cream shop Sogno Gelato created a tear gas-flavoured gelato, whose peppery kick serves as an omnipotent reminder of the massive protests that have taken place.

The flavour is literally labelled “tear gas”
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Tear gas ice cream is made of black peppercorns

Of course, one would naturally wonder what tear gas ice cream tastes like.

The answer to that is hinted in the appearance of the ice cream.

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The dessert is a pale shade of beige, meant to resemble the smoke of tear gas.

If you peer closely, you can see that the gelato is peppered with little black specks.

Some might understandably mistake these to be vanilla beans, but the specks are actually black peppercorn.

This makes the ice cream “really pungent and irritating“, said one customer, who also added that the dessert made her want to drink a lot of water immediately.

Ice cream was inspired by Hong Kong protests

According to the owner, the flavour was created as a sign of support for the pro-democracy movement.

He said,

We would like to make a flavor that reminds people that they still have to persist in the protest movement and don’t lose their passion.

After experimenting with different ingredients such as wasabi and mustard, he eventually settled on black peppercorn for coming closest to the throat-irritating effects of tear gas.

Tear gas ice cream isn’t a flavour, it is an experience

As the shop is based in Hong Kong, adventurous foodies will have to wait till the Covid-19 outbreak subsides around the world.

Though we cannot fathom why anyone would want to eat ice cream that makes you feel like you’re choking, we can’t deny it provides a unique experience like no other.

Featured image adapted from South China Morning Post and South China Morning Post.