Nagano 2019: Black Vanilla Ice Cream

While I was in Nagano I had the pleasure of eating some black vanilla ice cream, which just might be my favorite flavor of Japanese ice cream. As you can see in the photo above, this ice cream is literally colored black and it is dispensed from a soft-serve ice cream machine. I had first tried out black vanilla ice cream during my 2017 trip to Japan and I had been keeping an eye out for it during my 2019 journey but it wasn’t until I got to Nagano that I finally saw a vendor that was selling it. Black vanilla ice cream’s appearance is merely the result of food coloring and it tastes like creamy vanilla ice cream, so don’t let the color fool you. Part of me suspects that this ice cream was created purely for social media photos, but regardless of its origins I’m a fan of black vanilla ice cream and am looking forward to eating again during my next trip to Japan.