Wagashi and Young People

            Which words do you come up with when you hear ‘Wagashi,’ Japanese-style confectionery? If you image these positive words, for example, beautiful, sweet, and delicious, you seem to be interested in Wagashi. However, young Japanese people actually feel unfamiliar with it nowadays. The reasons can be the high price, the old-fashioned, and too sweet. Thereupon, All About Inc. and Shunkado, Japanese-style confectionery store and famous for Unagi-pie, conducted a survey. It shows two out of ten people in the younger generation eat Wagashi several times a week, which is a half of the ratio of Western-style confectionery. It means that young people are losing interest in Wagashi gradually. In order to stop that losing and make them attracted to it, some Wagashi stores launched new products which even the younger age group is likely to prefer. I am introducing three stores I picked out; nikiniki, irodori, and Housen.

            Have you ever had Yatsuhashi? Yatsuhashi is made of rice flour, sugar, and cinnamon. It’s like a biscuit. There is another type of Yatsuhashi. It is also made of rice flour, but unlike a normal Yatsuhashi, it is soft and sweet. It is called Nama-Yatsuhashi. Nama-Yatsuhashi usually contains Anko (sweet red bean paste).

            Shogoin is one of the most famous company of Yatsuhashi. Recently, Shogoin made a new brand of yatsuhashi. It’s named “nikiniki”. 

            They have a special Nama-Yatsuhashi, looks like a figure doll. It has very small parts and made precisely and carefully. They change its appearance seasonally. On June 5, 2019, they had Nama-Yatsuhashi which is designed using the rainy season as a motif. There were two kinds of Nama-Yatsuhashi. One pair of them looked like a girl wearing a raincoat which is designed like a frog and a frog with lotus leaf. The other pair were like a child who wear a red raincoat and a rainbow. It tasted like a normal Nama-Yatsuhashi. The motif depends on seasonal things: Cherry blossom in spring, Polar bear with a tube in summer, and Santa Claus in winter. They look very cute, and of course it tastes really good. It costs about 600 yen. 

            They also had another new type of Nama-Yatsuhashi. Usually, Nama-Yatsuhashi looks like a triangle. However, this Nama-Yatsuhashi looked like a flower. Customers can choose the color of Nama-Yatsuhashi dough and taste of paste. They had a lot of kind; for example, blueberry. It was not only blueberry jam but also had a lot of blueberry fruit inside. It costs about 100 yen.

            If you want to try new type of Nama-Yatsuhashi, you should go to nikniki. They worth buying.

            Kohakutou is one of the Japanese-style confections. It started to make from Edo period whensugar came in japan. It made from kanten and sugar. So many sugars are used to make Kohakutou, but it has mild sweetness. It does not have a regular form, so it has many kinds of cute and colorful design which has so many different shapes. These days it is popular with the young girl and many of its picture are posted to Instagram. People try to produce new creative and attractive products because Japanese-style confections are not familiar for recent Japanese people. Ariheitou is a kind of candy. It came from Portugal and it spread when Edo period. It made from thick malt syrup and sugar same as a usual candy, but its proportion is different. 

            Ariheitou made from using more sugar than a usual candy so it is resistant to damp and heat. This time I would like to introduce a store which name is “Irodori”. Kohakutou is a long and narrow cubic and it is colorful. It also has some flavor of plants, for example, a rose, a mint and a jasmine. Ariheitou is a stick shape and it has a design to remind us historical places of Kyoto, for example green is Uji and red is Gion. 

            Warabi-mochi is made from bracken-root starch. Only 70g of bracken-root starch areprodu ced from 10kg of bracken and this work takes half a month by handwork so bracken-root starch is very rare. Therefor using 100% bracken-root starch is not so many even though it is a special product. Warabi-mochi which uses 100% bracken-root starch looks like black it and it is used to be round and it has sweet bean pas te inside. Thus, white and square warabi-mochi that we can see easily these days is not traditional style. Warabi-mochi has started to make since Muromachi period and it has developed into Western Japan at the center of Kyoto. Warabi-mochi has nostalgic scent for Japanese people and mild sweetness so it is very popular among all generation. 

            This time I would like to introduce Housen, which has a Japanese traditional style. There is a Japanese garden and you can spend relaxing time. Wrabi-mochi of this shop uses 100% bracken-root starch so it looks black. It is soft and very difficult to catch it with chopsticks. Its taste is very mild. 

            In these days, some Wagashi stores have made new products like these examples. Since one made a confection which have a cute shape, another one changed traditional candies colorful. Moreover, the other made Wagashi tasted chewy. They are tackling the problem of the decrease of young people’s interest. I wish more and more new brands will be established like these. I like to eat Wagashi because its shape and taste attract me. I would like as many young people as possible to got interested in Wagashi through this article.

(Chitose・Fuke・)