Here’s a little something that should set your taste buds afire. . . coal ice cream!

Coal ice cream is sold at a website (in Japanese) set up to publicize the activities in the Northern Japan coal mining area of Kushiro.

No, the ice cream is not really made out of coal. Different materials are combined to produce colored layers that resemble the different strata encountered by miners in the Kushiro coal field, which extends under the Pacific Ocean.

• The top layer is made of cream soda ice cream to give it a blue color that represents the Pacific Ocean.
• The coffee flavored ice cream in the middle layer is a light natural brown, like the sediment at the bottom of the ocean.
• The black color of the bottom coal vein layer comes from sesame ice cream, which contains chocolate chips that represent the pieces of coal that are mined from the ocean floor.

An 8-pack of coal ice cream costs 3,200 yen.