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BY KATLYNN FOX
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KESSHO’s owners started crafting chocolate rst, before producing gelato, because gelato is easier for people to consume at a larger volume, Liang said.
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Liang was born and raised in China, while her co-owner Mark Huetsch is from the Midwest.
KESSHŌ has two locations, one located at South 1st Food Court, and another on Burnet Road, which opened last year.
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KESSHŌ blends Asian avors with Western desserts Liang Wang and Mark Huetsch shape Austin’s dessert scene by developing new avor pro les for their locally made cookies, chocolate and gelato. The context here. However hot it is, we manage to ship chocolate [and] make gelatos.”
Chocolate avors include the guava lime dark choco- late bar, jasmine yuzu dark milk chocolate bar and black sesame chocolate butter cups. KESSHŌ also produces cookies, which are used to make ice cream sandwiches with signature gelato avors. For gelato, patrons can choose between mango sticky rice, ube, banana shoyu or yuzu lemon cheesecake. “We bake the cheesecake from scratch, and we cut the cookies into the gelato,” Wang said. “I’m a big believer in making things from scratch so that you know what you’re actually using.”
Wang’s rst introduction to the sweets industry was in 2009 when she and Huetsch started an American pie company in Beijing, China. For Wang, the goal was to bring American avors to Chinese households. Now, with KESSHŌ, she strives to bring a mixture of Asian ingredients to Austinites. After running the pie business for nearly a decade, Wang decided to study pastry and baking at Le Cordon Bleu in Tokyo. At school, her instructor inspired her to learn more about the chocolate-making process. Diving in deeper Wang and Huetsch o cially launched KESSHŌ in 2019, before the pair relocated to Austin. The rst food truck opened on South First Street in 2023, with KES- SHŌ’s Burnet location launching in May 2025. For dessert It all starts with the Austin-made chocolate. All the brand’s chocolate is made at its kitchen in South Austin, which is rare due to Texas’s hot weather. “It’s not so easy, but we never regret making the deci- sion [to come] here,” Wang said. “I really love the people
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1 601 W. Live Oak St. 2 6726 Burnet Road, Austin https://kessho.com
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