london workshop

Wagashi Workshop in London

/ Mutsumi / Leave a comment

Dear Wagashi Lovers,

Your long waiting is over! I am pleased to announce that the ‘Wagashi’ Japanese Sweets Making Workshop in London will be held next month. The theme of the workshop is “Autumn Colour” and we are going to make ‘Momiji’ Japanese maple, Ginkgo leaf and Chrysanthemum. All the sweets we will make are vegan and gluten free.


Although it will be held at our usual venue, the Havan Store, because of the concern regarding the pandemic, this time we’ll have two sessions of a smaller class with a limited number of participants.

Wagashi Making Workshop in Autumn

  • Date: the 13th November (Saturday)
  • Time: 11:30 – 13:00 / 14:45  – 16:15

The ticket sales have just started. For getting your seat could you please visit:

https://thehavan.com/product-category/event/

Hope to see you there.

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Wagashi Workshop in London in Summer

/ Mutsumi / 2 Comments

I have hosted several ‘Wagashi’ Japanese Sweet Making Workshops. They were mainly for adults and I had been thinking that it would be great if I could have a Workshop that people could participate with their children. In order to make this plan possible there were several issues to clear and the biggest one of them was that the event has to be held daytime. For solving the problem I thought it would be best if the event was held during the school holiday period. In case this idea happens, I have been considering several designs for sweets which are attractive and also simple enough for children to make but enjoyable for adults too. After going through many possibilities I finally picked three designs in the summer theme and set up a date and the venue to have a workshop on the 25th of July.

 

Wagashi Making Workshop (July/’19)

I had a ‘Wagashi’ Japanese Sweet Making Workshop in the Summer theme on the 25th of July and it ended well.

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Wagashi Workshop in London (May/19)

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It is so great that my ‘Wagashi’ Japanese Sweet Making Workshop is becoming almost a monthly event. This time it was at a new venue that was in an interior shop with a beautifully setting located in a quiet courtyard in North London.

 

Wagashi Making Workshop (May/19)

I had five participants who were willing to join me for this workshop. They are three female and two male, two of which were Japanese. I was very pleased to have this wonderfully mixed group of people.

workshop

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Wagashi Workshop in London (April/19)

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How was your Easter? It was very nice that we had great weather for this Bank Holiday weekend. About one week before Easter time six people gathered in a Tea shop in Soho London and my Workshop in April finished successfully. It’s great the daytime is becoming longer now and when we started the Workshop at 7pm the outside is still bright.

Wagashi Making Workshop (April/19)

This time all the participants had tasted my sweets before and we had two workshop repeaters amongst them.

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Look how smiley everybody in the workshop is. Of course they looked very serious when they had to concentrate on making the shape of the sweet but quite often we all went in bursting a laughter! It was such a relaxed great atmosphere. It’s great to see everyone was enjoying the time being there.

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Wagashi Workshop in London (03/18)

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Two weeks ago I hold a ‘Wagashi’ Japanese Sweet Making Workshop. It was at a Tea specialty shop in Soho London and the workshop was combined with a Japanese Tea tasting session. This time we had six participants and they were composed of two friends with a daughter, a couple and a French lady. They all had been to Japan or lived there before so everyone knew what we were going to create so I could start the class very smoothly.

Wagashi Making Workshop (03/2018)

These are the Wagashi sweets I planned to make together with the participants.

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A Field with Full of Spring!

/ Mutsumi / 2 Comments

Summertime has started in the UK. We lost one hour last sunday but we have longer daylight now. That is great!

When I was searching for a good design for ‘Wagashi’ Making Workshop in Springtime, this sweet was born. What I needed was something easy to make, visually pretty and also something represents this season well.

 

Spring Field – Full of Spring

I was imagining a vast field which was covered with lots of wild plants bursting out  their flowers. In that kind of pretty field we surely have butterflies too. Yes, it’s true I might have topped it up with a little too many pieces. Maybe it’s not that suitable for a workshop but I believe that it certainly looks very spring-like.

Spring Field2Have a wonderful spring moment of yours!🌺🌸🌷🌼

One Door Closes and Another One Opens

/ Mutsumi / 15 Comments

We have just stood at the beginning of the year 2019. Everything starts from a beginning and the things have an end.

The Beginning

I have been making ‘Wagashi’ Japanese sweets in London for several years now and particularly in the last three years my sweets were served to paying customers. It was at the ‘Matcha’ Bar of a Kimono shop, Wasoukan, that was located in Notting Hill. It all started three years ago when I entered a ‘Sake’ Cooking competition and won second prize. At the same time Wasoukan was looking for someone who would provide Japanese sweets for them and the manager of the shop at that time heard about me and my Wagashi making skill from the organizer of the cooking competition. They contacted me soon and the following month and since then I had been supplying two types of seasonal Japanese sweets to Wasoukan every month.

and The Ending

Now nearly three years have past since then. Although Wasoukan has been doing well and especially gained many loving customers, they decided to close their London branch and the last December was their last month. It was very sad news for me, not because from my business point of view but it was because I really liked the shop and all the staff who were working there. They seemed to get on very well together. During this three year period of my serving sweets to them I have met many of their customers and I can tell that they all loved the shop. Everybody was so sadden by this closing news and wonder where they would get good Matcha tea from in London after the shop is gone.

So one evening before the shop was closed some of the present and ex-staff of the shop as well as their great customers gathered to hold a surprise farewell party for the manager who was going back to Japan.

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Wagashi Workshop in London (Oct/18)

/ Mutsumi / 3 Comments

This post became a much delayed report but last month I had an opportunity to hold another ‘Wagashi’ Japanese Sweet Making Workshop in London. This time it was at the very posh lovely Tea speciality shop My Cup of Tea which is located near Piccadilly Circus. Maybe because it was a weekday and also in the early evening we had two male enthusiasts amongst female participants. It is great to see many people from both gender getting to know about Japanese sweets culture and being interested in even making them.

 

Wagashi Making Workshop in London October 2018

The theme of the sweets we made in the Workshop was Flowers. I planned to make three sweets that are visually pretty but not too complicated to produce for beginners. After a short introduction the workshop commenced.

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Wagashi Making Workshop

/ Mutsumi / 2 Comments

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.

Workshop10-2e

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