In Kyoto, there are many specialized shops of food. This shop Mamemasa (豆政) sells bean and nut snack, and they let customers taste their products. I found that coated almonds flavored with soy sauce, mixture of cayenne pepper with other aromatic spices, and laver, etc. were especially good. There were also coated peanuts and cashew nuts. So, I bought all these nuts.
The colorful snack in the picture below is five-colored sugar-coated peas, which is the specialty of this shop. It was invented in 1887 by using five colors. They are red, white, yellow, green, and brown, which were used for celebrations in the imperial palace. Personally, I don’t like sugar-coated peas very much, but they are colorful and may be good for a souvenir.
Lastly, I have to mention sweets from Tawaraya Yoshitomi (俵屋吉富). Their fresh sweets were so beautiful that their picture was the most eye-catching in the poster of Kyoto Fair.
In addition to these, they had many elegant sweets such as bonbons, dry confectioneries, and agar jelly. The agar jelly was selling well. When I came to the shop, there were only two pieces. I bought one, so the one in the picture was the last piece.
The jelly was beautiful. When I ate it, I felt the flavors of wine and cherry leaves. According to the label, it contained salted cherry blossoms and leaves, plum wine, and some kind of Western liquor, in addition to sugar, agar, and white bean paste. It may be fit for adults.
Kyoto is a treasury of sophisticated food culture. If you are interested in Japanese traditional confectionery, search with “Wagashi” in YouTube. You can find many beautiful sweets.
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