Wagashi - If you love sweets you are missing out!

Hi all, sorry for the delay until this post as Im sure you all want to more about Japanese food. Right?

All sorts of Wagashi

Well today I will be blogging  about “Wagashi”, traditional Japanese confectionary. Im sure most of us don’t think much about artistic sense when eating sweets, but this particular “Wagashi” will take you beyond just artistic sense as each individual Wagashi is crafted by a professional craftsman, which has been passed on by generation to generation.

Wagashi is often served with tea in tea ceremony. So if you get the chance to attend in a tea ceremony, don’t forget to pay attention on what type of Wagashi is served before you have your macha (green tea).

As you may have guessed, Wagashi came into the Japanese culture as the tea ceremony becom  I think I will blog about tea ceremony next week seen as I have brought it up here!
e popular amongst the Samurais. Yes,! tea ceremony was originally only for men, and mostly Samurais, no women were allowed at this stage. Tea ceremony is where you can explore your philosophical sense through understanding the purpose of each process you must follow and the whole atmosphere.

Tea Ceremony

So Wagashi plays an important part of the tea ceremony. Wagashi began its history as the production of sugar developed in early Kamakura period  (1191), through China. China learnt how to produce sugar from India and it was traded amongst with Green tea and dim sum.

Wagashi become more popular towards Edo period (1603~1868), where a lot of Japanese culture really became vivid and people were looking for more leisure.

As I explained before, Wagashi plays an important role of the tea ceremony because Wagashi was one of many elements which expressed the seasonal characteristic. As you can see in the photo there are many different shapes, colour and texture of Wagashi, they all express seasonal characteristic.

Whether that is through using seasonal ingredient or through shape.

As I have noted before that Samurais were the main attenders of tea ceremony? Well guess what!? Samurais were good with hands too! Making Wagashi.

Most of Samurais would know at least one kind of Wagashi that they could offer to guests when they invite other Samurais for tea ceremony to discuss about serious stuff… So serious…

So if you are one of the people who dreamed about becoming a Samurai, not only you have to practice your sword skills but you better start helping your mother cook dinner too! So you get practice of making dishes then you can try making some Wagashi!

Here is a youtube clip demonstrating how one particular Wagashi is made.

Although Wagashi was loved by all citizens and was very popular, the demand for Wagashi has dramatically dropped since the Meiji period, where western culture were brought in and took many’s attentions.

Hence since then, the number of Wagashi craftsman has also dropped significantly. So if you want to try Wagashi, you might have to search for specific retail or do your own research. I have found this site which might help you Here