Rice flour, sweet beans, sugar, and water. These are the humble materials used to make wagashi—painstakingly crafted, bite-size tea snacks once prized by the Japanese imperial court. Practitioners who ...

Have you ever seen a Raindrop Cake? It’s the clear round transparent “cake” talked about on many food and culture websites last year. That Raindrop Cake — believe it or not- is actually not exactly a ...

Emma Orlow is a former editor and reporter for the Northeast region at Eater, who focused primarily on New York City, where she was born and raised. She covered restaurants, bars, pop-ups, and the ...

Traditional Japanese teatime sweets, known as wagashi, are in a league of their own. While western desserts are often equated with excess and indulgence, the dainty wagashi instead calls for quiet ...

In the last few years, the English term “sweets” has come to be used in Japanese as a hold-all term referring to all kinds of cakes and confectionary. But it seems a shame to lump the Japanese wagashi ...

On the Autumnal Equinox 122 years ago, Haiku poet Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902) ate “ohagi” sticky rice balls coated with sweet red bean paste while sick in bed with spinal caries. He penned this poem: ...

A rapt audience watches in silence as a delicate confection in the shape of a flower blooms in the experienced hands of a wagashi master. Junichi Mitsubori, a third-generation wagashi (Japanese ...

Japanese confection wagashi is one of the few desserts in the world that reflects the seasonal changes. SAKAI CITY, Japan – One of our first assignments in the Sakai-ASEAN week 2014 was our ...

“Neo wagashi,” a modern twist on traditional Japanese sweets, is gaining popularity with its photogenic appearance that is perfectly suited for today's social media era. Long-established shops and ...