Tamura, who grew up in Tokyo, can still remember the cheesecakes his mother gave him for his birthdays as a child, including one with freshly made strawberry sauce.
He spent years honing his skills and techniques in fine dining restaurants in Japan and France, where he began working on desserts. His cheesecakes were served in those restaurants, but he wanted to expand his customer base.
“I wanted to challenge myself with things that others didn’t try, and I wanted to make the delicacies I prepared accessible to more people,” he says, which led him to start his own brand.
His classic cheesecake is flavored with vanilla and tonka beans. Since it was difficult to open a physical store during the coronavirus pandemic, he published the recipe on the Mr Cheesecake website in 2020 and wasn’t afraid to share his secrets.
People started trying his recipe at home and posting the results online, which led to the recipe’s rapid popularity.
After the pandemic, Tamura began opening more physical pop-up stores and gained more fans who were eager to try the real product.
“I loved the sweetness of the pineapple bun combined with the refreshing taste of the milk tea and wanted to recreate that taste with my cheesecakes,” he says. He was also motivated by the many requests on social media to bake a milk tea cheesecake.
Milk tea-flavored snacks and desserts have long been part of Hong Kong’s food culture.
Earlier this year, he began experimenting with milk tea cheesecake, which took about three weeks from start to finish. To create the perfect tea flavor, he combined Sri Lanka’s uva tea and aromatic black tea from Yunnan.
He originally wanted to use tea leaves from Japan, but he realized that he could best achieve the “charm of Hong Kong” with tea leaves from at least one region closer to the city.
After tasting four or five different varieties of Yunnan tea leaves, he decided to follow a recommendation from chef Tomoya Kawada, owner of the three-Michelin-starred contemporary Chinese restaurant Sazenka in Tokyo.
Tamura, who is visiting the city for the fifth time, says he has noticed that Cantonese dishes are milder and desserts less sweet than those of other regional Chinese cuisines, making them similar to Japanese cuisine.
Tamura received feedback from his pop-up store that his chocolate cheesecake was too sweet for Hong Kong palates. “I heard that Hong Kong people are very health conscious, so I adjusted the milk tea flavor to reduce the sweetness and make it more palatable to Hong Kong people,” he says.
Mr Cheesecake recommends three serving options: frozen, half-thawed and fully thawed. Tamura points out that the taste and texture of the cheesecake are affected by the way it is served, and recommends eating his Milk Tea Cheesecake fully thawed for the most intense flavor.
He also suggests pairing the milk tea cheesecake with black tea or a slightly sour and fruity coffee with a strong aroma. Champagne would also go well, as its slightly burnt and sour smell complements and enhances the smoky and spicy scent of the milk tea.
He currently has no plans to launch another Hong Kong-exclusive flavor, although he recently enjoyed a sweet osmanthus-flavored soup dessert in the city and hints that the floral ingredient may feature in his next cheesecake.
He is also constantly expanding his culinary knowledge in his private life. In addition to desserts, he is also working on perfecting savory dishes such as sushi.
Whether he’s baking or cooking, he tries to put himself in his customers’ shoes. “I don’t just think about whether it’s delicious or not, but I also pay attention to how people like it, how they enjoy it, how they put the food in their mouths, how they combine the taste and aroma of the food.”
Although Mr. Cheesecake’s trademark is dubbed “best cheesecake” on social media, Tamura says he doesn’t get fixated on rating or ranking his food and that his intention is to spread joy.
He refers to the brand’s motto: “Not the best in the world, but we make your days the best.”
