My family likes sweets. Tea (or coffee for my mother) time is very important: 10 am, 3 pm and after dinner - three times a day. During my last short visit to my parents, I enjoyed the tea time with them everyday. When my mother and I was shopping at a local department store, we found one of my favorite sweets,
Karukan. It's a steamed cake filled with sweeten red beans, a traditional sweet in Southern Japan "
Kyushu" region. We bought some for 3 pm tea time.
In my opinion, Japan is seriously devoted to create fine European-style sweets. This was
Fromage blanc tart with caramelized pear. It was a dessert after dinner.
Rolled cake with sweeten chestnut "Mont Blanc" cream from Angelina, a French old pastry store specialized in Mont Blanc. It was a sweet for 10 am tea time.
Japanese traditional sweets -
Warabi-mochi, a jelly-like confection made from bracken starch and covered with toasted soybean flour, or Kinako. And
Sakura-mochi, pink rice cake filled with sweeten red beans wrapped with a salt-pickled cherry leaf.
My father's favorite,
Gozasourou - baked cake filled with sweeten white bean paste.
Soft rice cake filled with sweeten red bean paste and whipped cream, covered with
Matcha, Japanese green tea power. The white hot drink was
Ama-zake, a Japanese traditional drink made from fermented rice. It's very sweet, non-alcohol.
This was
Kinpukurin, a special sweet from a local Japanese pastry shop. The outside is soft delicate paste made from white bean, chestnut, etc and the inside is smooth sweeten red bean paste and a huge whole sweeten chestnut. The gold leaf on the top is dignified.
The same store also sells European-style pasty made with Japanese ingredients like this - whipped cream mixed with sweeten red beans. The cream covers coffee flavored sponge cake and more sweeten red bean paste. And at the bottom of the buttery crispy pie cup, there are a chunk of sweeten chestnut!
It's tea time!
