Traditional Japanese Wagashi Sweets in Photos

Wagashi are Japan's traditional sweets, built mostly from rice, sweet bean paste (anko) and starches such as agar, kudzu and bracken. This gallery shows the ones a visitor is most likely to meet, from the hand-shaped fresh sweets of the tea room to the grilled dango and fish-shaped taiyaki sold at street stalls. Many are tied to a season or a festival, so the captions say when each one is usually eaten and what sets it apart from its neighbors in the shop case. Western-style Japanese desserts and packaged candy are left out.