What’s better than getting a golden ticket? Earning one. For Sachi Minobe, a young, Florida-based pastry chef, the taste of victory is indeed sweet after winning a contest to be Van Leeuwen’s lead ice cream taster.
But don’t think this dream job came easy. Minobe froze out hundreds of competitors for her chance to be a real-life Willy Wonka.
It all started when the artisanal ice cream company decided to open up its Brooklyn factory in honor of its 15th birthday. Van Leeuwen would offer an outsider a free trip to New York to sit in on internal R&D sessions and participate in roundtable tastings, then send them home with a pint of every single flavor they make plus free ice cream for a year. There was just one catch: You had to deserve your desserts.
“Pretty much everyone I know has offered their services if we ever need tasters,” Ben Van Leeuwen tells TODAY.com. After co-founding the company with his brother Pete and a third partner, Laura O’Neill, in 2008, they found out quickly that plenty of people think they have what it takes to provide professional opinions on ice cream. And in what might be the world’s least surprising news, with 15 years of success now under their belts, they were seeing in real time what happens when you offer free ice cream to people on the internet.
Submissions poured in from across the country. Applicants young and old went to great lengths to stand out from the rest. There were songs and raps composed, costumes donned, elaborate videos filmed.
But none more elaborate than Minobe’s. She had never won anything before, she says. But she headed straight to Walmart to buy a tripod and start filming.
The Scene
Her submission featured animation, multiple outfit and location changes, even a bathtub filled with tea in honor of her favorite Van Leeuwen flavor: Earl Grey.
“She clearly had good taste,” Van Leeuwen says as Minobe arrives at the factory to begin her tenure. Plus, she’d offered constructive criticism, teasing that she’d only share her feedback if she won. Was that a selling point? “Absolutely,” Van Leeuwen says at the same time O’Neill bursts out, “Not at all!” The two dissolve into laughter. It’s time to get down to business.
First, Minobe joins the team’s weekly tasting in a colorful conference room decorated with the brand’s signature (empty) pints. Van Leeuwen explains that they use this time to address any customer complaints that might have come in and taste everything that’s been made that week, starting with the mildest flavors and ending with the strongest ones. Churning out 80 flavors a year is no small feat, and one of the challenges, he says, is that “everything is good.” They’ve had to revise their process after learning they couldn’t just ask employees what they liked.
“The ‘Aha!’ moment for me of the last five years is looking at what actually gets eaten (in the conference room),” he says. “What makes the business is what people will go back for.”
“We can always tell what’s good when we do a tasting like this because the pint will be gone,” agrees O’Neill.
The room is getting crowded as employees come in brandishing spoons and passing around half-melted cartons. Minobe weighs in on two top-secret upcoming collaborations, but she has also come prepared with a list of some of her own ideas to share. Inspired by muffins her grandma made, she proposes a white chocolate ice cream with raspberry, along with a version of Neopolitan ice cream based on her Japanese and Australian background. Strawberries with condensed milk is a popular dessert in Japan, she says, so why not use that combo as the pink base, and give the chocolate part a malted milk twist to evoke Milo powder?
“Milo is so nostalgic,” O’Neill says, nodding thoughtfully. The team loves Minobe’s ideas and gets to work immediately, discussing how they could be brought to fruition.
There’s a reason Minobe has a flair for flavors: She studied the art of patisserie at the iconic École Ducasse in Paris, France. Hoping to stay there after graduating, she was briefly devastated when visa issues got in the way. That’s when she found out her mother in Florida had moved just minutes away from one of the best pastry shops in the state. She’s been working there ever since.
“I feel like it all worked out for the best because it led me here,” Minobe says, gesturing at the delicious mayhem surrounding her.
On this day, they happen to be making her favorite flavor — that distinctive Earl Grey. As it turns out, Minobe’s fantasy wasn’t too far off from how Van Leeuwen actually makes it.
After suiting up in sanitary gear, she is escorted into the room where the real magic happens. Enormous bags of Rishi tea are being steeped in big vats while partially frozen custard is being churned in other big vats. Minobe joins the line to help guide it into large containers bound for scoop shops, which turns out to be harder than it looked. Luckily, the team is chill about ice cream spillage.
Much dairy has already been consumed, but Minobe’s day has just begun. She is headed downtown with the co-founders to hand out free scoops from the truck where their sweet dream began 15 years ago. A full-circle moment for them, and the beginning of a new one for their first lead ice cream taster.
This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY
