Trader Joe’s Ube Mochi – Welcome to the Mochi Family!
Trader Joe’s does it again with an ube product. I’ve tried their ube ice cream, their ube tea cookies, and their ube mochi pancakes. Now they’ve made their ube mochi ice cream! Their pint ube ice cream was amazing, so I was extremely excited when my local TJ’s had their ube mochi ice cream in stock.
Ube Mochi – Purple Yam Ice Cream Surrounded by Sweet Rice Dough
Purple yam doesn’t sound too appealing, but when it’s slightly sweetened and in ice cream or dessert form, I’m sold. Trader Joe’s has other mochis, such as green tea, vanilla, peanut butter chocolate, and several other standard size ones. They also have mini sized mochi in Thai Tea flavor and mango flavor. So good… I haven’t seen those mini ones in a while though. All are pretty good with an amazing texture.
Cost and Such
One disappointing thing is that my local TJ’s (unsure about whether it’s all locations) is that their mochi price increased by 50 cents. A pack of six cost $4.49. Each mochi is around 75 cents. Expensive compared to prior prices, but still cheap compared to other grocery stores and restaurants. Mochi ice cream from specialty shops and restaurants can be over $2 per mochi, so these are a bargain in comparison.
Taste and Texture
Have you noticed that some parts of their ube ice cream tasted more of ube than other parts? The same goes with these mochi. The first one I had didn’t taste much of ube, but I did enjoy the subtle flavor. My second piece (shared this one with the daughter) had a much stronger and sweeter ube flavor and that piece had quite a few ube bits in there. I took half of the husband’s piece and that one was more on the mild side. Overall the taste is great, not too sweet and similar to their other mochi. The texture is amazing – chewy, a bit sticky, good with the ice cream and good without.
Small Comparison to TJ’s Green Tea Mochi
The weight listed on the boxes of the mochi are the same, and they appear to be the same size as well. One difference I noticed in the packs I bought were the mochi portion and the ice cream portion ratio. The ube mochi had more mochi and less ice cream, and the green tea one had a thinner mochi layer and more ice cream.
Nutritional Facts
Ube on the left above and green tea on the right above. Both mochi contains 80 Calories per piece. Their macros are rather similar too.
Worth It?
Absolutely! I really enjoyed TJ’s ube mochi ice cream. It was more enjoyable than their tea cookies and mochi pancakes, and they are more fun than their regular ube ice cream. I’m a huge mochi fan though, so unless the mochi portion is just terrible, I’ll mostly like the mochi. I’ll end this post with a picture of the mochi in comparison to the box photo below.
