I have been making sweets for every tea class for a couple years now. I’m still learning constantly, and failing frequently, but I’ve gotten to a point where I’m usually comfortable serving what I’ve made to the students. You can see some of my more recent sweets below. My first tea teacher, Kimiko Gunji-sensei, just released a new wagashi cookbook in English called Wagashi: Season by Season which got me thinking about the resources I’ve used to make sweets.

My journey with tea started in 2014. I was beginning my final year of undergrad at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and I was going through depression. My coursework and thesis were overwhelming, and I found myself needing a break from engineering. I had no prior interest in Japanese culture at this point, and no prior contact with tea, but I knew I had to do something different from my regular coursework.