Move over, matcha: Black sesame is the hot new flavor on Philly’s cafe, dessert, and cocktail menus

There’s nothing new about black sesame. In fact, it’s ancient — one of the oldest cultivated crops in human history. But now, it’s trending all across the U.S. Yelp even named it one of 2026’s standout flavors. As with matcha, ube, and pandan, black sesame is a classic Asian ingredient that’s been brought to the forefront of trendy cafes and on dessert menus.

Walk into a typical matcha-focused cafe in any of Chinatown’s popular chains, and you’ll see black sesame turning foams a charcoal gray or being mixed into soft serves and coffee. But it’s not limited to Chinatown: black sesame is on the menus of restaurants like dancerobot, Vedge, Càphê Roasters, Cake & Joe (where it’s turned into a chiffon and layered with a matcha mousse), and more, as Philly’s pastry chefs work with the ingredient.

Black sesame is also a fall crop, and you’re likely to start seeing it even more as the temperature drops. It has been used for centuries in East Asia, often consumed ground. There’s an enduring belief that as a home remedy, it keeps hair black and delays graying. In traditional Chinese cooking, the ground seeds fill the mochi balls of tangyuan that are suspended in a hot and sweet soup.

Black and white sesame seeds come from the same plant. The difference in the seeds is due to processing. Unlike white sesame seeds, black sesame seeds retain their outer hull (like the difference between white rice and brown rice). The hull gives black sesame a nuttier, bitter and even smoky flavor, as well as a crunchier texture compared to creamy, sweet, white sesame seeds.

At the Bread Room, “we use black sesame seeds to make the base of the [black sesame] latte,” said executive chef Christina McKeough. “The seeds are toasted and ground, then simmered in a lightly sweetened simple syrup with honey, maple syrup, and salt to create a rich, toasty, nutty, well-balanced, sesame-forward syrup.”

Càphê Roasters’ seasonal black sesame coffee drinks are set to return in November. To get a taste of black sesame there in the meantime, pastry chef Zoe DeLay makes a brittle with it for the cafe’s yuzu honey cake, which makes her nostalgic for her childhood. “My mom is Korean and there aren’t a lot of desserts in Korean cuisine so growing up, I mostly ate rice cakes made with honey, black sesame, and chestnuts, which are also big fall flavors,” she said.

“Yuzu and honey are floral, bright, and citrusy flavors but black sesame is grounding and has a savory edge. In brittle form, it retains its crunchy texture,” she said. “Black sesame adds depth and personality to sweet things. It gives Korean cuisine nutty, earthy flavors and it’s incredibly versatile. You can use it in ganache, creams, cakes, and as a glaze.”

At Vedge, chef-owner Kate Jacoby makes a black sesame tart which also reminds her the first moment she tried halva as a child. “It rivals peanut butter in its indulgence level,” she said. The tart itself was born by accident, after Jacoby unintentionally ordered too large a bag of the seeds. These worked their way into a frangipane, or sweet paste, which fills an oblong sable-cookie tart shell that is also topped with fresh peaches.

Black sesame panna cotta is one of Royal Izakaya’s signature desserts, developed by Jesse Ito and Justin Bacharach. They really leaned into savoriness of the black sesame cream, adding miso dulce de leche as yet another salty, umami-rich ingredient. When the time came to put a black sesame dessert on dancerobot’s menu, Bacharach drew from the black sesame research and development he had started at Royal. “I like desserts that aren’t just sweet but also tangy, salty, bitter — like a savory dish. The earthy, nuttiness of black sesame in a sweet dessert really brings out an interesting complexity,” said Bacharach.

For their black sesame sundae, dancerobot uses the ingredient many times over. “We make a black sesame fudge brownie, black sesame curd, black sesame hot fudge, and a black sesame and peanut crisp where we utilize the leftovers from the bar, which makes a black sesame espresso martini,” he said.

To make the espresso martini, beverage manager Kristian Fidrych first makes a black sesame syrup, toasting the seeds “until they start crackling and popping,” and steeping them in a Demerara sugar syrup. The process leaves the bar team with excess black sesame seeds that have been cracked open — perfect for the black sesame sundae’s brittle. Fidrych adds another layer of black sesame to the espresso martini by using black sesame paste to fat wash the Japanese Haku vodka overnight, which makes the base of the cocktail.

“I hate sprinkles,” said Saif Manna, the baker behind Manna Bakery. So when Manna was tasked with creating a holiday cookie for The Inquirer in 2023, he used crushed pistachios and freeze-dried raspberries to give his caramelized butter and honey sesame cookies a festive splash of green and red. “I wanted to make something nostalgic and memorable and so I started with cookie I hated as a child, barazek cookies.” He always thought they were too crunchy, so he transformed them into ones with a soft, gooey, chewy texture. The cookies he created for The Inquirer’s holiday edition kept evolving and the following year, he made them with black sesame seeds instead of white. The black sesame version has become his go-to Christmas cookie (look for it on the menu soon at Manna Bakery.)

And so, you can also think of black sesame seeds as earthy, natural sprinkles. If you want to try them at home, sprinkle them on yogurt or a bowl of steamed rice. Or just wait — odds are they’ll be showing up at a menu at your local cafe soon enough.