Traditional details make this a gift to remember.

One of the real pleasures of travelling around Japan is buying local gourmet foods as souvenirs. Enjoying them once you’ve returned home, and reminiscing about your travels, adds another layer of joy to the purchase, and we were reminded of that on a trip to Kanazawa in Ishikawa Prefecture recently, where we picked up a new kind of local confectionery that straddles the worlds of Japanese and Western sweets.

What first attracted us to the product was the elegant packaging, which had an adorable “ume mizuhiki” design on the box, slightly concealed by delicate paper. Ume mizuhiki are auspicious knots often seen at celebratory occasions such as weddings, and the red-and-white hues were another auspicious element that had us instantly reaching for them.

It was love at first sight for us, and when we found out that they were from Le Cotantin Kanazawa, an esteemed confectionery store, we immediately purchased them.

▼ The sweets are called “Kintsuba Biski“.

Among mizuhiki knots, “ume-mizuhiki” is known for being especially auspicious, and the modern Japanese design beautifully reflects Kanazawa’s unique harmony of tradition and contemporary style. We were thrilled to be able to bring home sweets with such a meaningful motif as a souvenir from our travels, and it was exciting to lift the lid to discover what lay inside.

Kintsuba is a traditional Japanese confection with a long history and deep roots in Kanazawa, where tea ceremony culture is still very much alive. Kintsuba Biski is a Western-style reinterpretation of this classic sweet, and the set we purchased, for 1,780 yen (US$11.14), included two plain and two matcha pieces.

Starting with the plain, we saw that it looked like a simple kintsuba at first glance, but after breaking it in half, baked pastry was revealed inside.

The sweet had a sublime, incredibly delicious flavour, which is largely due to the use of French fermented butter in the dough, which gives it a luxurious taste and texture. It pairs surprisingly well with the gently sweet kintsuba filling, creating a truly refined blend of Japanese and Western styles.

▼ Now for the matcha.

This one was just as wonderful. As soon as we bit through the thin outer layer of the chewy kintsuba, the fragrant matcha flavour spread across the palate. Surprisingly, the matcha doesn’t overpower the red bean paste or the Western-style dough – instead, everything comes together in a perfectly balanced way, creating a truly beautiful harmony.

Both the plain and matcha pieces are quite large, but before we knew it, we’d finished them both. We don’t really have much self-control when it comes to sweets, so we’re actually quite thankful that this sweet is relatively hard to get – the only physical location selling it right now is “Anto” in Kanazawa Hyakuban-gai inside JR Kanazawa Station.

When we visited the shop in the evening, stock was already running low, which shows just how popular it is. The store is located near the Hokuriku Shinkansen ticket gates, so next time you’re in the area, be sure to keep an eye out for this pretty souvenir, or alternatively, you can order it online, through the link below.

Related: Le Cotantin Kanazawa
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