What wagashi means
Wagashi is the name for traditional Japanese sweets, as distinct from Western-style sweets and cakes. The word comes from wa, meaning Japanese, and kashi, meaning sweets or confectionery. Wagashi are closely linked with the tea ceremony and are usually served with green tea, their sweetness balancing the bitterness of matcha. They are made mostly from plant ingredients, especially glutinous rice and rice flour, sweet adzuki bean paste known as anko, agar, sugar, chestnuts, sweet potatoes, sesame and seasonal fruit.
There are many types. Namagashi are fresh, moist sweets, often exquisitely shaped and coloured to reflect the season, such as cherry blossoms in spring or maple leaves in autumn. Higashi are dry sweets, such as pressed sugar shapes, that keep longer. Other familiar wagashi include mochi and daifuku, dango skewered dumplings, yokan jellied bean paste, dorayaki pancakes filled with anko and taiyaki fish-shaped cakes.
Seasonality and appearance are central to wagashi, and many are made by skilled specialist confectioners. The sweetness is usually gentle, and textures range from soft and chewy to smooth, crumbly and crisp. You will see wagashi in Japanese tea houses and confectionery shops, and in recipes for mochi, anko and other Japanese sweets.