Japanese Tea Shop Sells Ice Cream With So Much Matcha Powder, People Cough It Out

The cinnamon challenge is a viral internet trend which involves people trying to eat a spoonful of cinnamon powder. It’s harder than it sounds, as the dry, spicy powder clings to your throat and makes you cough.

Now imagine it’s matcha: a Japanese tea shop called Nagamine Seicha in Tokyo’s Tabata neighbourhood is selling a soft serve ice cream cone that’s coated with so much matcha powder, its customers have difficulty ingesting a mouthful.

An innocuous vanilla soft serve cone is made lethal with a liberal shower of matcha powder (it looks delicious, though...)

A manager for the tea shop explained that the dessert is called the Coughing Matcha Cone as it, well, makes people cough. When asked if he was perhaps sprinkling too much matcha powder on his soft serve cones, the manager replied: “No. We dust [the powder] thickly so our customers can try it.”

In a video posted by Facebook group Anime Expo Cosplayers Tugegarao, people were filmed trying the matcha soft serve. Their default reaction was to spew the excess tea powder, as you can see below:

A man who enthusiastically bit into his soft serve wheezed violently and started gagging. When asked about his experience, he croaked: “It’s really choking.”

A lady choked on her matcha ice cream too, but tried to cough delicately.

This guy spilled matcha powder all over his bag after a coughing fit. We hope the shop didn’t use the expensive stuff for this.

The cinnamon challenge has been panned by doctors for being harmful and potentially fatal. According to an article on the challenge by the Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, ingesting dry powder may cause a person to experience a burning sensation in the mouth, nose and throat”. In extreme cases, the reaction could even lead to a nosebleed, vomiting, asthma flare-up or collapsed lung. Don’t try this with your Milo Dinosaur.

Photos: Source, Google Maps