Aburi-mochi
1. There are many chaya (teahouses) in Kyoto where you can enjoy tea and Japanese sweets. For those with a sweet tooth, visiting these teahouses is one of Kyoto’s great pleasures.
2. For instance, a thousand-year-old teahouse named Ichiwa serves aburi-mochi, a specialty of the Imamiya Jinja shrine. This is a tiny rice cake on a bamboo skewer, dusted in roasted soybean flour, charbroiled and served with a special white miso-paste sauce. Fifteen sticks make up a single serving. Each portion is bite-sized, so unless you have a full stomach, you won’t have any difficulty finishing them all.
3. While sold as a souvenir, aburi-mochi is best eaten within three hours after cooking. For this reason, it is not recommended to bring this treat to your home overseas.
4. Enjoying aburi-mochi with tea while seated on the teahouse bench and viewing the scenery beats any energy drink to sweep away your fatigue from the journey.