The Yomiuri Shimbun
Natsuko Takahashi holds a plate of wagashi sweets next to edible sweets that look like Jomon-period pottery pieces, left, in Hokuto, Yamanashi Prefecture, on July 4.
12:40 JST, August 31, 2025
HOKUTO, Yamanashi — Cream puffs in the shapes of prehistoric Jomon pottery and kohakuto candies that look like crystals are just some of the many wagashi traditional Japanese sweets that represent one confectioner’s enthusiasm for sharing the charm of her local region through food.
Natsuko Takahashi’s entertaining wagashi are made with quality ingredients and have mild flavors.
Takahashi, 29, has honed her skills as a confectioner at Kinseiken, a wagashi shop chain based in Hokuto, Yamanashi Prefecture, while creating unique sweets inspired by local specialties and cultural heritage.
Takahashi is originally from Hachioji, Tokyo. Influenced by her family’s love for gardening, she has always been drawn to a life surrounded by nature. When she was a student, she looked for an ideal place to live after graduation. During a visit to the Akeno district of Hokuto, she was thrilled by the beautiful sunrises and sunsets.
She decided to live in the city and started looking for a job in the prefecture.
Focusing on her passions of food and “enjoying the changing seasons through all five senses in daily life,” she visited many companies. One of them was Kinseiken, which has over 100 years of history.
Making wagashi with seasonal fruits can reflect the changing seasons and please people of all ages, Takahashi thought. The chain uses the region’s natural resources, such as the delicious water of the city’s Hakushu district, to make its products. Takahashi was impressed by their philosophy and joined them in 2019.
When Takahashi was a student, her main interest was eating. Since joining the chain, she has honed her skills as a confectioner by gaining knowledge and learning techniques from veteran confectioners. She realized that making wagashi is a deep and intricate process, with aspects such as flavors depending on the ingredients, their ratios, mixing methods, temperature and season.
After working as a confectioner for about four years, she was given a new challenging opportunity by the chain: She was assigned to plan a project that would combine Jomon culture, which she had loved since elementary school, with wagashi sweets.
Yamanashi Prefecture is where valuable Jomon pottery artifacts have been unearthed and is known as one of the areas where the Jomon culture flourished. Encouraged by Kinseiken’s commitment to making wagashi that embodies local pride, Takahashi aimed to “help people in the prefecture know more about their local culture.”
For the first event of the project, she created cream puffs using dough patterned with Jomon pottery’s dynamic designs. She also used ingredients such as chestnuts and walnuts, which humans have eaten since the Jomon period.
The product became popular as it resembled Jomon pottery and was delicious. Her project has continued, making other sweets such as moon cakes modeled after Jomon-period earrings and kohakuto, which are jelly candies with a translucent appearance, inspired by obsidian and crystal.
To create wagashi that evoke scenes in nature and provide a rich experience when eaten, Takahashi is currently training rigorously to make jo-namagashi, a type of high-end, easily perishable wagashi that is harder to make.
“I want to improve my skills so that I can properly incorporate what I’ve seen into my confections,” Takahashi said.
AloJapan.com