How Wagashi Is Made: Japan's Official 8-Category System

There’s more than one official way to sort wagashi. Alongside the moisture-based system that determines shelf life, Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) recognizes eight categories sorted by production technique, how a piece is actually made, not how wet or dry it ends up.

The eight categories

Mochimono (餅もの), rice-based. Built around rice, usually as pounded mochi, shaped or combined with other elements. Kashiwamochi (oak-leaf-wrapped mochi), daifuku, and ohagi all fall here.

Mushimono (蒸し物), steamed. Made by steaming in a mold or vessel rather than baking or boiling. Steamed manju and chestnut-steamed yokan are the classic examples.

Yakimono, flat-pan (焼きもの・平鍋もの). Baked directly on a flat griddle. Dorayaki and sakuramochi both belong here.

Yakimono, oven-baked (焼きもの・オーブンもの). The same broad “baked” category, but using an oven rather than a griddle. Chestnut manju and castella (a yogashi with wagashi-adjacent status, given its centuries in Japan) are typical examples.

Nagashimono (流しもの), poured. Made by pouring a liquid mixture into a mold and letting it set. Yokan is the defining example of this category.

Nerimono (練りもの), kneaded. Built around kneaded bean paste as the main ingredient, shaped by hand rather than poured or baked. Nerikiri and konashi, its two best-known forms, aren’t interchangeable despite looking similar: nerikiri kneads white bean paste with mochi rice (and sometimes mountain yam) while heating, for a smooth, moist result generally associated with Kanto, while konashi mixes white bean paste with wheat flour and steams it, activating the flour’s gluten for a chewier, more elastic texture generally associated with Kyoto and the Kansai region. Both are commonly used for the same purpose, hand-shaped seasonal sculptures, but the ingredients and technique genuinely differ. Konashi in particular is central to Kyoto’s own tradition; our guide to kyo-gashi covers why. That wheat content also means konashi-style sweets aren’t gluten-free, unlike much of wagashi; our gluten-free and allergen guide covers the type-by-type breakdown.

Okamono (おかもの), assembled. Built by combining separate, independently made components rather than a single continuous process. Monaka, a wafer shell filled separately with anko, is the classic example, and its name has its own real backstory: it traces to saichu no tsuki (最中の月, “the moon at its fullest”), a phrase from a Heian-period waka poem, since the round white wafer resembled a harvest moon closely enough that Edo-period customers made the connection. The wafer itself is made by steaming glutinous rice, drying it, grinding it to powder, and baking that powder in a mold, which is what gives monaka its light, crisp texture, genuinely distinct from any other technique on this list.

Uchimono (打ちもの), pressed. Pressed into a mold and hardened, typically from sugar, rather than baked, steamed, or poured. Rakugan is the defining example.

Frequently asked questions

The short version

MAFF’s official wagashi classification sorts by production technique into eight categories: mochimono (rice-based), mushimono (steamed), two yakimono types (griddle- and oven-baked), nagashimono (poured), nerimono (kneaded bean paste), okamono (assembled), and uchimono (pressed). It’s a genuinely different lens than the moisture-content system that determines shelf life; this one answers how a piece was actually made, and familiar sweets like daifuku, dorayaki, and yokan each land in a specific, named category rather than existing outside any classification at all.