Last Sunday I had an opportunity to hold a ‘Wagashi’ Japanese Sweet Making Workshop. The venue of the event was Wasoukan, the Kimono shop located in Notting Hill, South West London. I had been thinking to do this kind of activity for many years and the chance had come to me at the end of May. Because it was decided so suddenly that I had only just a little more than one week to notify and gather people to attend.  Despite the short notice, many people made enquiries, ending up with the right number of participants for the day.

The space in the venue was the ‘Matcha’ Bar counter of the Kimono shop. It is a unique little space so it was limited to a small number of people. That was actually great for me because I could give attention to all the participants.

Our time was limited to only two hours and I was a little anxious that if I was hoping to do too much in a short space of time and we would not be able to finish. After a short introduction about myself and Japanese sweets the workshop commenced.

They look quite serious?!

With so much concentration …

It’s so delicate work.

They all had tasted this type of Japanese sweets before so that they knew what the finished products they were aiming to make. Although it was the first time they handled Nerikiri material which is soft, sticky and a little gooey, they were all doing so well. Every participants were so keen and the workshop moved on very smoothly.

These are the Nerikiri sweets I made as the example and what they all tried to create.

And the photos below are the participants’ creations on the day.

What do you think? I think they all did a great job!

At the end of the workshop we all were served a bowl of lovely Matcha Green Tea either hot or cold to have one sweet out of three they created and took the rest to go home. Everyone was taking time to decide which one they should eat on the site and which two to take home to show their friends and families.😊

Thank you all for attending to my workshop and hope to see you again soon!

There were several people who wanted to join us but couldn’t on that day so I do hope I can have another workshop sometimes soon. If you would also like to attend, please contact me. Cheers!