Cultural Workshops in Tokyo

When you’re visiting Tokyo and want to fully experience traditional Japanese culture, what could be more authentic than shaping wagashi (traditional Japanese sweets) with your own two hands? Take a step beyond just eating and try something hands-on! This charming little cooking workshop in the heart of Tokyo offers a place to learn about, create, and of course eat nerikiri (練り切り), a variety of traditional Japanese dessert designed to look like edible art. And there’s an optional matcha tea ceremony add-on, too!

If you’re looking for a fun way to relax during your Tokyo trip, or want to experience Japanese culture without anything too intense or time-consuming, this workshop at AN TOKYO Japanese Culture Experience is an easy choice.

Nerikiri-Making + Matcha Ceremony Experience at AN TOKYO Japanese Culture Experience

Tokyo is a big city, filled with vibrant culture, but one easy recommendation is a workshop at AN TOKYO Japanese Culture Experience, located just a minute on foot from Kanda Station. The entrance is a bit small, but it’s clearly marked—just take the elevator up to the 3rd floor.

When booking your workshop, you’ll find two options. The first is a simple nerikiri lesson, good for travelers short on time. The second is a fuller experience: first learn the techniques and get hands on making two seasonal nerikiri, then add a simple matcha tea ceremony experience, for a total time of about 65-90 minutes. The Japankuru team is full of matcha lovers, and we wanted to see everything AN TOKYO had to offers, so we went with the more complete experience!

AN TOKYO Japanese Culture Experience
No.2 Toei Bldg 3F, 2-2-9 Kajicho, Chiyoda City, Tokyo
Directions: 1 min from the East Exit of Kanda Station (JR / Tokyo Metro Ginza Line)
Hours: workshops 10:00 – 17:00 | shop 7:30 – 20:00
Optional Add-Ons:
・Certificate of completion (extra fee)
・Take-home box (extra fee)
・English support (availability depends on the day, but participants can request guaranteed English support for an additional fee)

What Is Wagashi? What Are Nerikiri?

Japanese food lovers, red bean addicts, and sweet tooths with experience in Japan might be familiar with the term wagashi, which refers to a wide variety of traditional Japanese sweet treats. This workshop, however, is focused on one kind in particular: nerikiri (練り切り).

Rich, dense, and sweet, nerikiri are made from white bean paste (“shiro-an”), mixed with mochi flour and sugar. What makes them really special, however, is the appearance—carefully shaped and dyed with natural coloring to create seasonal designs, often inspired by flowers. This delicate beauty is a defining feature for nerikiri, and the finished product is often so intricate that it looks more like art than food.

When it comes to flavor, the soft bean paste has a gently sweet and simple flavor, a perfect match for the bitter matcha it’s typically served with! Nerikiri and matcha are a classic combination in Japan, and this workshop is just the place to experience it for yourself.

The Wagashi Workshop Experience

First: How to Make Nerikiri

The first part of the workshop is shaping your own nerikiri! When you arrive you’ll find out what the day’s designs are, because it’s tradition for these to change depending on Japan’s seasons—not just four, but 24 different seasonal periods, providing unique inspiration throughout the year. (Some people come back to the workshop again and again to learn new designs!) During the Japankuru team’s visit we learned how to make a pretty canola flower nerikiri, and a multi-colored butterfly.

Upon entering the classroom, you’ll find all the nerikiri tools already prepared: trays, disposable gloves, wooden sticks used for shaping, natural powder tints, and two types of bean paste produced by a long-established Kyoto wagashi shop: white bean paste and red bean paste, called koshi-an, to be used as a filling.

The instructor first explains the basics of Japanese sweets, including different types of wagashi, in both Japanese and English. Workshops often include both local and international participants, so the instructor tends to look around to see where English is needed, especially when it comes to the actual instructions for making the sweets. If you ever need help, you’ll find plenty of enthusiastic advice!

It’s time to get hands-on and start! Everyone gets their own set of tools and bean paste, so it’s just a matter of watching each step as your teacher carefully explains how the different shapes are formed. You’ll find yourself dividing up the bean paste dough, mixing colors, shaping basic forms, and finally refining them into intricate shapes using the specialized tools—in our case, an adorably chunky butterfly, and delicate little blossoms.

The Japankuru team is full of perfectionists, and at first we all felt the pressure to make our nerikiri look good enough for a wagashi shop, but the instructor was quick to reassure us: You’re new to this! It doesn’t have to be perfect, just enjoy the learning process! The encouraging words were enough to change our mindset, helping all of us see that whether the finished product was beautiful or not, the joy of trying something new made it worthwhile.

In the end, placing our finished pieces side by side, we all felt proud to have transformed simple dough into sweet little works of art.

Next: The Matcha Making Process

After the sweets-making lesson, we moved on to the tea-making section, a part of the experience that matcha lovers won’t want to miss! Before we got started, the instructor began with another short lecture on green tea, quickly covering everything from cultivation methods and the uniqueness of first-flush tea leaves to some very basic tea ceremony etiquette. The workshop space even has a specialized tea mill, allowing live demonstrations of grinding tea leaves!

Then it was time for all the workshop participants to start whisking their matcha. The tea was single-origin and made from the first harvest of the year, giving it a deep, distinct flavor.

Just smelling the strong aroma of green tea while whisking away was enough to leave us feeling more relaxed. We finally finished off the workshop by enjoying all the fruits of our labor, with a perfect balance of the sweet nerikiri and the lightly bitter flavor of the matcha.

Workshop Details
Nerikiri Plan: 1,760 yen per person (for ages 2+, infants are free)
Nerikiri + Matcha Plan: 2,800 yen per person (for ages 2+, infants are free)

How to Book Your Wagashi Workshop

We booked this workshop through the Veltra website, a helpful tool for finding tours, workshops, and other travel experiences in Japan. It’s all available in English, making booking easy—all you have to do is find the right experience and select a date, time, like we’ve laid out below. Of course, that convenience means that popular experiences get booked up quickly during peak travel seasons, so we recommend booking your experiences as soon as you have your travel plans figured out!

Travel Tip: Veltra offered us a discount code, so Japankuru readers can now get 5% off their booking! Just use the coupon code JAPANKURU5off at checkout.

① Search for “wagashi” or “nerikiri Tokyo” on the Veltra website. Or just click this link for the workshop.
② Select your desired workshop date and time. (Usually 8:00/10:30/13:00/15:30/18:00)
③ Enter the number of participants.
④ Select a plan (Wagashi Only / Wagashi + Matcha Experience)
⑤ Pay online (credit card accepted).

And that’s it, booking complete! Now all you have to do is look forward to your upcoming wagashi workshop! If you look around, you’ll probably also notice some other cool tours and activities designed to help you enjoy your time in Japan, and see it from a new perspective. If you’re interested, you can see what else Veltra has to offer via the link below.

Add the Perfect Japanese Cultural Experience to Your Trip

This little workshop was fairly quick and simple, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t make a meaninful addition to any trip to Japan. The bean paste disappears in minutes as you gobble up your sweet treats, but the newfound knowlege on wagashi—and the memories—will last long beyond the end of your travels.

If you’re looking to add something new to your Tokyo itinerary beyond shrines, temples, and shopping, this workshop comes highly recommended. You might just discover something totally new about Japanese culture! Book your workshop on Veltra.

▶︎ Get your 5% discount at Veltra by clicking this link, or use the coupon code JAPANKURU5off at checkout.

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