A Man Who Had Never Made Confectionery Created Murakami's Hitokuchi Gashi—Kamontei's Yoshikawa Shinji, Part 2

"If there are no specialty sweets," - that single comment from a guest from Kyoto sparked a challenge from scratch, as I had never made sweets before. What I arrived at was the philosophy that "sweets are a dish made by combining sweet ingredients." Dried persimmons with fermented butter and bean paste, cream cheese with seaweed, snow-aged carrots, and winter mandarins. What are the unique specialties of Kamontei, encapsulating the culture of Murakami in every bite?

#3 Starting from no experience in sweets

"If there are no specialty sweets" - a comment from a guest from Kyoto led to a challenge from scratch.

── You offer sweets in addition to tea. How did that come about?
It was a good decision to focus on tea, highlighting Murakami's tea culture.

However, a guest from Kyoto told me, "Famous tea houses in Kyoto always have specialty sweets." When they said, "It would be great if you could have specialty sweets," that's when I realized, "Oh, I see."

Just drinking tea felt like something was missing. Adding sweets enhances the tea and makes for an enjoyable time. That's when I first realized, "Ah, I need to make sweets."

── Did you have any experience making sweets before that?
I had never made sweets before. So, the question was, what to do?

Since all of us at Kikkawa made things by hand, the thought of asking someone else to make sweets didn't cross my mind at the time.

Well, as I researched various things myself, I arrived at two conclusions.

One involves using dried persimmons. When you consider the origin of sweets, in an era when there were truly no sweet foods, dried persimmons could be considered the origin of sweets. And in those days, people enjoyed sweets in a pleasant way.

The kanji for "kashi" (sweets) is written with the radical for grass (草冠), the kanji for fruit (果), and the kanji for child (子). If you decipher this, it means "something born from fruit."

Therefore, I decided to serve dried persimmons, which can be called the origin of sweets.

── What was the other realization you had?
While eating and researching various sweets, I encountered a sweet made with sansho pepper one day.

I wondered if sansho could really go well with sweets. I couldn't imagine what it would taste like, but I asked for it anyway. And it was wonderfully delicious.

At that moment, I realized that sweets are just like cooking, made by combining sweet ingredients. That's what I thought to myself.

Since I had made various dishes and developed products, I thought I could make them myself if they were dishes.

I had no experience making sweets, but I thought I could make dishes with added sweetness.

── So, by treating sweets as a form of cooking, the path opened up for you.
The key concept lies in uniqueness and the drying process.

Considering what kinds of sweets could be made within that framework, unique sweets unlike any other were born, and these are the bite-sized sweets unique to Kamontei.

#4 Dried persimmons, seaweed, snow-aged carrots. The reason for unique sweets

Making sweets as a dish. The world of bite-sized sweets unique to Kamontei

── Specifically, what kind of bite-sized sweets do you offer?
For example, this is a dried persimmon, from Sado's Satsuki. Fermented butter and red bean paste are sandwiched inside the dried persimmon.

And inside the dried winter mandarin is a flavorful cream cheese with chopped ginger. We also have a bite-sized cream cheese sweet made with nori seaweed.

The carrots made from snow-aged carrots are fried to condense their sweetness, and their name is "My Sweet Carrot."

Inside the one adorned with 3-4 kinds of nuts, we've wrapped cream cheese.

── All of them are combinations I've never seen anywhere else.
Uniqueness and the drying process are the concepts behind Kamontei's bite-sized sweets. Our staff makes them in the morning and we serve them.

── How do you enjoy these bite-sized sweets as part of the tea course?
While you're drinking tea, we serve these bite-sized sweets midway through. For the high-grade sencha course of "Teishu no Cha" (Master's Tea), we explain the sweets in front of you and you get to choose two of your favorite bite-sized sweets.

── Being able to choose from samples sounds like a fun experience.
We are also particular about experiences other than tea. For example, the box where the sweets were placed, and the box where the menu was placed, are both made of Murakami Tsuishu*2.

※2 Murakami Tsuishu: A general term for lacquerware from Murakami City, Niigata Prefecture, which involves delicate carvings on a wooden base and multiple layers of natural lacquer.

This is how we introduce the culture of Murakami to our guests in a seamless flow. That's what we do.

#5 The quiet persuasiveness that only authenticity possesses

Spinning unchanging beauty with tools loved by my father

── I can feel the attention to detail in the materials and tools throughout the store.
For example, regarding the water, our main store, "Kikkawa," was a sake brewery a long time ago (from the Edo period until the end of the war).

We draw the well water that was used for brewing in the morning and serve it here. It's soft water, slightly firm, with a very well-balanced taste. You can also enjoy the taste and form of water from ancient times.

── The large central table also has an overwhelming presence.
It's a 5.5-meter zelkova tree from Iguchi Seizaijo, which deals in old timber in Nagaoka. We joined three of them together to make this grand table.

The architect who suggested this table said, "If there's an impactful presence here, the salon will be characterized very well, won't it?"

── It must have been quite a struggle to bring it to fruition.
Even if you can draw it, if you actually want to bring it to life, you have to gather the materials first. And even if you have the materials, you need craftsmen who can make it.

I actually filmed the process of making this table.

They first join the boards, draw lines on the three large pieces, cut them with a saw, and then plane them down. It's truly a masterful creation.

── I can feel your commitment to creating the space.
Also, I wanted to create a Japanese-Western eclectic atmosphere. My wife and I discussed it back and forth. From my male perspective, hanging a chandelier like this felt a bit embarrassing, but my wife insisted it would look good here.

And once it was hung, it somehow matched strangely well. This isn't my taste (laughs).

── You're also particular about the tools for brewing tea.
The foundation of the salon is my father. It's the style of tea that my predecessor practiced. Both the taste of the tea and how it's served.

The water heater was one of my father's treasured tea utensils. He used a water heater from Gyokudō. Following his example, I also use a water heater from Gyokudō.

── The copperware from Gyokudō is a work of art in itself.
It's incredible how they pound a single copper sheet with a hammer to create the shape of this water heater, isn't it?

I truly think it's an amazing technique. Gyokudō's water heaters are so lovely, or rather, cool. I also think the color is unique and beautiful.

It's genuine craftsmanship.