I love Wagashi(wa-ga-shi)

Have yourself some Japanese sweets! Japanese sweets are very healthy. They are made using beans and grains rather than cream and butter. Beans are mainly made into a sweet paste and it's a typical feature of what "wagashi" is to be. Wagashi was gradually developed along with the Japanese tea ceremony which had been completed in 16th century and got into practice since then. Let put its historical story aside for now and just enjoy watching those, since "wagashi" is a work of an art, so to speak. If you go into a wagashi confectionery store, you'll be so anxious to know what all these tiny sweets represent to us. Most of them are molded into items of the four seasons, such as flowers, leaves, and even typical scenery from the four seasons which are often described in ancient poems. Like every work of paintings has its name or title, so does every wagashi.

Five wagashi in the pictures have each name, for example. You will see each name in the picture below. Does it make any sense to you? They are all representatives of spring. I'm pretty sure it is one of the ways for us to enjoy the four seasons in Japan respectively-----appreciate a shape of wagashi and feel the season out of it. It'll be perfect with a bowl of green tea.