Mister Donut releases new sweet potato doughnuts in Japan, and we’ve ranked them from best to worst

Not every doughnut is worth the calories.

Around this time every year, Mister Donut delights fans by releasing a special range called Satsumaimo Do .

With “ satsumaimo ” referring to sweet potato , and “ do ” being an abbreviation of “ doughnut ”, this range is so popular it’s now in its eighth year, but one person who’s never really gotten on board with the craze is our reporter P.K.

Sanjun.

He’d always thought they were tasty, but not really worth recommending, given that the sweet potato wasn’t strong enough to win him over .

However, this time around, the range is said to be very different, with Mister Donut claiming to have reinvented the doughnuts, enhancing the sweet potato flavour by giving them a brand new shape and texture . ▼ The three-lobed shape is said to resemble three sweet potatoes in a circular formation.

Image: Press Release This was enough to lure P.K. into Mister Donut for a tasting, and with his hopes high, he ordered all of them to see if they were any better this year . ▼ First up was the most basic of the bunch, the Satsumaimo Do Plain (183 yen [US$1.17] for takeout and 187 yen for dine-in).

Taking a bite, the first thing that stood out was the texture.

It was incredibly crumbly, almost on par with the texture of an Old Fashioned, but with an extremely light mouthfeel.

More importantly, though, was the flavour of sweet potato , which was significantly stronger than before .

P.K. couldn’t quite work out how they managed to pack this much sweet potato flavour into the doughnut without any topping, and it was so good that he began to think that this eighth evolution might really be worth paying for. ▼ Next up was the Stone-Roasted Sweet Potato-style (194 yen; 198 yen), which was a stunner.

The stone-roasted sweet potato-style glaze made it look near-identical to an actual roasted potato, and it helped deliver the flavour faster to the taste buds too.

This one totally earned P.K.’s respect, and it was so good he says it was the best one in the range . ▼ The next doughnut, however, the Satsumaimo Do Melty Salted Butter (194 yen; 198 yen), totally fell short, with P.K. saying it was his least favourite.

Though it was tasty, the cream totally overpowered the sweet potato, burying it to such an extent that he could barely taste it, making it the weakest sweet potato flavour of the five.