Herbal... Ice Cream? Ginseng Soft Serve from Milk Cow

I've been seeing many people purchasing sundaes from Milk Cow, so I decided to try one of their sundaes... and was thrilled to see this flavour on the menu - ginseng. (They called the flavour Samsam... since I don't know Korean, I've no idea why...) Now I would never have associated herbs as something that went well with milk, much less ice cream... but it totally did, and I'm still trying to figure out why. 
Samsam - milky soft cream sundae with ginseng syrup and sliced almonds.
The soft cream tasted really milky - like sweetened, high quality Jersey cow or Hokkaido milk. (Image below is the official promo pic from their website.)
The menu image for Samsam.
The bitterness of the ginseng syrup actually overlapped with the milky, non-cream taste of milk. I don't quite know how to describe it otherwise...

The almonds were a surprisingly good match for two reasons... firstly, taste-wise, its woodiness (especially from the almond skin) blended into the bitter and woody ginseng taste. 

Secondly, the almonds, sliced that way, looked very much like sliced Chinese licorice, a herb commonly used in soups and other herbal concoctions with ginseng. So the visual presentation made the ice cream sundae look very herby indeed!

I'll most probably be back to try this again...

Found this ice cream interesting? Check out more unusual ice creams hereAlso, if you don't live in Asia, herbal ice cream might be highly unusual to you. If you found this interesting, you can explore more exceptionally unusual food and drinks here!

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