Konpeito

Konpeito (金平糖) is a small, hard, star-shaped sugar candy whose name comes directly from confeito, the Portuguese word for a type of sugar comfit; the kanji used to write it today are ateji, chosen for sound rather than meaning. Portuguese traders introduced it to Japan around 1546, and in 1569 the missionary Luís Fróis famously gave a bottle of it to the warlord Oda Nobunaga. Its low moisture and pressed-sugar structure place it firmly in higashi, wagashi’s driest and most shelf-stable tier. Handmade konpeito is grown, not molded, built up over 7 to 13 days in a rotating copper drum as syrup clings to existing bumps and forms the candy’s signature spikes.