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Contents of Seasonal Sweets

One of the ways that nature is brought into the tea room is through a seasonal sweet served after the meal.

A round black lacquer dish sits on the tatami mat. It contains a triangular tea sweet. The top is covered with red adzuki beans. The bottom layer is a kind of sweet rice cake. A wooden pick used to eat the sweet rests across the front of the dish.

Lecture Notes

The name of this sweet is minazuki, "month without water," another name for the seventh lunar month which is celebrated in June today. The sweet is meant to resemble ice and give a cool feeling.