Fugetsudo Kōbe has a long history of over 120 years in Kōbe with their signature product being the gaufre, a crunchy, lightly baked sandwich wafer with refined sweet cream (like the Ueno Fugetsudo Matcha Petite Gaufres). While at their main store in Motomachi, we picked up these Fugetsudo Kōbe L’espoir Gaufrier.

These L’espoir Gaufrier sandwich five of their L’espoir butter cookies with layers of flavoured refined sweet cream into what they call a millefeuille chocolat.

This box contained four of these L’espoir Gaufrier with four flavoured creams: lychee, genmaicha, matcha and strawberry. I have to admit lychee is the sole reason I chose this box combination over others (having decided not to purchase the entire collection of flavours).

Lychee

The L’espoir Gaufrier with lychee cream comes in a champagne gold coloured wrapper.

It consisted of five butter cookies sandwiching four layers of white coloured lychee cream and enrobed in dark chocolate.

There’s a fragrant aroma of lychee as the packaging is unwrapped. On biting through, the first flavour to hit is the smooth lychee cream, which is very sweet with a less prominent flavour than in the smell, although still prominent and reminds of lychee syrups used to flavour beverages. The dark chocolate cuts through some of the sweetness, but not enough.

Genmaicha

The L’espoir Gaufrier with genmaicha cream comes in a golden yellow coloured wrapper.

It consisted of five butter cookies sandwiching four layers of pale green coloured genmaicha cream and enrobed in milk chocolate.

The sweet notes of milk chocolate dominated the smell of this one. Indeed, even on tasting, the genmaicha flavour was very mellow, serving mostly to enhance the nuttiness of the enrobing milk chocolate and buttery wafers. Notes of the green tea in the genmaicha are absent, and I could be persuaded this was just a nutty chocolate without seeing the green cream.

Matcha

The L’espoir Gaufrier with matcha cream comes in a green coloured wrapper.

It consisted of five butter cookies sandwiching four layers of matcha cream and enrobed in dark chocolate.

This one has richer notes of chocolate on opening the package, but pleasantly, the matcha flavour came through very noticeably on tasting. There’s are vegetal notes that pair well with the slight bitterness of the dark chocolate. Indeed, the richness of the dark chocolate does not dominate, with subtle notes of matcha lingering in the aftertaste. Of the four, this one had the most enjoyable balance of flavours.

Strawberry

The L’espoir Gaufrier with strawberry cream comes in a bright red coloured wrapper.

It consisted of five butter cookies sandwiching four layers of strawberry cream and enrobed in milk chocolate.

The fruit flavours tend to be more fragrant than the tea flavours, and with this, a sweet aroma of fresh strawberries came through on opening the package. The strawberry flavour continues on tasting, with a hint of tartness recalling fresh strawberries that cuts through the sweetness of the cream and the more mellow milk chocolate.

These L’espoir Gaufrier are all very sweet and best enjoyed with a green tea, which doesn’t have a bold flavour but still refreshes the palate between bites.

This Kōbe Fugetsudo L’espoir Gaufrier contained 4 pieces. It was produced in Japan and purchased in Kōbe, Japan in 2018.