Pizza Hut Japan just dropped a curveball into the moon-viewing season: a dessert pizza that swaps tomato sauce for matcha and tradition for pure sweetness.
Yes, really.
The name may be a mouthful, but so is the pizza. This limited-edition release is a sweet-salty mashup inspired by traditional Japanese flavors—and a 160-year-old Kyoto tea house.
The chain teamed up with Gion Tsujiri, a green tea institution dating back to 1860, to create this one-of-a-kind offering. The result? A crispy, hand-held pizza filled with rich matcha paste, gooey cream cheese, mozzarella cheese, chewy shiratama rice dumplings, and a final drizzle of kuromitsu (a dark syrup similar to molasses). All of it sits on a dough infused with premium Uji matcha.
This is Pizza Hut’s first “Japanese-style sweet pizza,” and honestly, it’s hard to imagine a more poetic launch. The shiratama dumplings even resemble tiny full moons, perfect timing for Japan’s tsukimi, the annual moon-viewing tradition.
You can grab the Handy Melts Matcha Shiratama Kuromitsu solo for ¥790 (delivery) or ¥550 (takeout). But it also appears as part of a seasonal autumn pizza value set, which includes a half-and-half Pork Tsukimi and Mayo Chicken Tsukimi pizza. Order the set and you can tack on the sweet matcha melt for just ¥395.
To celebrate the launch, Pizza Hut Japan is giving away 30 limited-edition tea sets featuring five types of Gion Tsujiri single-use tea bags. All you have to do is follow Pizza Hut’s X (Twitter) or Instagram account and either retweet or like the campaign post. Fifteen winners will be picked from each platform. The promo runs until September 10.
Whether you’re a matcha fanatic, a Pizza Hut loyalist, or just looking for something bizarre to try this fall, the Handy Melts Matcha Shiratama Kuromitsu is a bold fusion of East and West. It probably won’t become a year-round staple, but for a snack that doubles as moon-viewing poetry, it’s hitting the spot.
Source: japantoday.com