If you have ever made hummus, you know tahini. So when people ask what makes our black sesame ice cream taste the way it does, the honest answer sounds strange at first: it is sesame paste, but not that one.
The paste in our base is nerigoma, the Japanese version. Same idea as tahini - sesame seeds ground until they turn to liquid - but the two part ways before the grinding even starts.
Tahini usually starts with hulled seeds and a light hand on the roaster. That is what makes it right for hummus and sesame halva: pale, loose, a little grassy, with the bitterness sitting right up front. Nerigoma goes the other way. The seeds are roasted hard, then ground slowly until the paste turns thick and glossy. The bitterness does not disappear. It moves to the back and lands somewhere near dark chocolate or coffee.
Ours is kuro nerigoma, the black kind. Black sesame seeds keep their dark hulls, which is where the color lives, so the paste comes out nearly black and tastes deeper and a little wilder than white sesame ever gets. Fold that into milk and cream and you get ice cream the color of wet slate, with a flavor people struggle to name on the first bite. Roasted, faintly bitter, nutty without a nut in the building.
You could probably build a black sesame ice cream on tahini. It would come out paler and flatter, with the bitterness in the wrong place, because the deep roast is where most of the flavor lives.
One more thing, since it comes up at the counter a lot: sesame is a seed, not a nut, and the kitchen is nut free. Sesame is its own allergen, though, so ask us if that is a concern for you. Black sesame is the flavor people hesitate on and then come back for. If you have been circling it, this is your week. It is in the case as mochi ice cream and soft serve, and the mochi comes with a black sesame oil pipette if you want to push the roast even further.