On the last day of my last trip to Berlin, a friend sent a link to Berlin’s top ice cream shops with unusual flavours… in other words this list was showing exactly what I am looking for! (For those of you who understand German, here’s Mit Vergnügen’s article about 11 unusual ice cream flavours you can try in Berlin)
Based on time, distance and ice cream flavours, we headed off to Eispiraten in the area of Friedrichshain. The article indicated that Eispiraten make a sorbet with cardamom. Cardamom is possibly one of my favourite spices, so I was strongly hoping cardamom would actually be on offer that day!
A rather unlucky quest for cardamom ice cream
My quest for cardamom ice cream had been rather unlucky… It started years ago, after I whipped up some Indian kulfi ice cream with cardamom myself, from one of my recipe books. It was obviously incomparable to the ice cream made by an expert, but I loved the taste! Since then I’ve been eager to find proper cardamom ice cream!
About six years ago, on a weekend trip to Bavaria I finally came across an ice cream shop selling strawberry-cardamom ice cream! I would have tried it on the spot if I hadn’t just had my dosis of ice cream for the day! Unfortunately I realised the next day this shop was closed on Sundays…
I made it back there a year later and they didn’t sell any cardamom ice cream on that day.
Last year I was finally able to try the strawberry-cardamom ice cream from that shop in Bavaria: after all these years looking forward to trying it, I was disappointed!! 😦
I was over the moon when I spotted raspberry-passionfruit-cardamom sorbet at Eispiraten!
It was a fairly long wait outside of Eispiraten, wondering what flavours would be on offer. Once I got into the shop I was relieved & delighted to see they did have raspberry-passionfruit-cardamom sorbet on offer that day! The taste was dominated in a lovely way by the raspberry and passionfruit. There were little beads of raspberry which was nice and unusual. The taste of cardamom was subtle and could be tasted in some places more than in others.
I also tried their apricot-lemon balm sorbet: although I have already tasted lemon balm herbal tea, it’s not a taste I’m very familiar with. Tasting this ice cream in a cup along with two other flavours was possibly not the best way to appreciate its full flavour. Seeing tiny orange-coloured pieces was a nice confirmation that it’s made with real apricot!
The third flavour I gave into was walnut-sage: to me the taste was dominated by walnuts: I didn’t taste too much of the sage, but that may have been because my palate was numb from the two first ice cream scoops. I tasted a hint of sage after I had finished eating it.
Eispiraten prepare their ice cream fresh every day, without any artificial colourings or preservatives. Every day you can choose from a selection of 28 flavours of their homemade ice cream. Other nice-sounding flavours they offer include: vanilla-rhubarb and semolina-strawberry ice cream, raspberry-basil, lemon-ginger-mint and cucumber-lime sorbet.
Useful information
Eispiraten address: Grünbergerstraße 85, D-10245 Berlin
Website: www.eispiraten-berlin.de
Facebook: www.facebook.com/EispiratenBerlin
Tina, thank you so much for sending the link to that article about “11 unusual ice cream flavours you can try in Berlin“!!
Note: I recently posted an entry about the funky ice cream I had at Glaces Glazed in Paris: I was really happy to find coffee-green cardamom ice cream there, but my visit at Eispiraten took place before my visit to Paris – in other words, it was my first cardamom ice cream this year!
Traveller's Scoops 
Cardamom is a favourite of mine too! I have been putting it in all kinds of desserts, but never ice cream. This will have to change, thanks to your inspiration.
LikeLiked by 1 person