Harvard Square has taken ice cream seriously for decades. Generations of students have strong opinions about it, and the debate is part of the neighborhood's texture. We are new to the argument, and we came at it sideways.
Our storefront on the first floor of The Garage, at 36 JFK Street, used to be a Ben and Jerry's. We like that lineage. We do not do scoops, though. We make Japanese soft serve - dense, glossy, in flavors like ceremonial matcha, black sesame, and Thai tea - and mochi ice cream wrapped by hand every morning, plus ichigo daifuku and Japanese lattes.
The soft serve tradition we draw from is Japan's soft cream culture, where a swirl from a roadside stand is worth stopping for and the flavors change with the region and the season. We keep the menu short and rotate it the same way: a new flavor lands about once a month, and the one that has been around longest makes room.
The mochi side is what you cannot get from a freezer case. Fresh mochi ice cream, wrapped the morning you eat it, has a thin, soft skin that packaged versions do not, because mochi changes within hours of being made. We sell what we make that day and start over tomorrow.
If you are coming from Boston, we are three minutes from the Harvard Red Line stop, inside The Garage. Come after dinner; we are open until 8:30 every night. Bring your opinions.