Japanese cake

How are you, everyone?
Yesterday, I got some Japanese cake from a Japanese-style confection store.

There are couple different types of Japanese-style confections. Today I want to talk about nama-gashi (uncooked type). In The Way of Tea, nama-gashi are often served with tea, also in my tea lessons. They are made from sugar, starch syrup, rice, wheat and red beans mainly. And fruits are not used unlike western cakes. Japanese cakes are not only good to eat, but also fun to look at. They are beautiful visually. I like that they made with the sense of the season and the beauties of nature. I think they are a kind of art.

For casual tea and practicing *temae at home, I and Hiro (my wife) went to our favorite Japanese-style confection store and got some Japanese cakes. They are about four centimeter big which is smaller than western cakes and 160 to 250 yen for each. Hiro liked the one in the right back on the picture. It is made with an image of rose. The one in the most front is “a reflected moon on rice paddy”. My favorite one was “stream” which had an image of fish in clear liver. But, it is not in the picture. My father already had it; I was too late to take the picture (^_^;)

Have fun with your teatime and good day!!

* Temae is series of procedures followed to prepare for making the tea, then to do the tea making and then to put things away.