| Country: | Japan |
| Main Ingredient: | Usually rice flour |
| Cookbook: | Higashi |
| Commons: | Higashi |
, is a type of containing very little moisture, and thus keeps relatively longer than other kinds of .
, in contrast to, are a category of with any type of dry consistency. This can include, (a type of hard candy), (a type of rice cracker), (another type of rice cracker), and so on, though rice crackers are typically savoury, and thus not considered . Sweet are roughly equivalent to Western cookies or biscuits.
A narrower definition of may confine the recipe to one or more kinds of sugar, with a particular sort of flour, and some other additives, while there are some made solely of sugar, with no flour content.
The flour used in is usually made of rice, which has many different varieties of its own. Flours made of other ingredients, like azuki, soybean or green pea and starches are often used too.
made with, Japanese premium traditionally-made fine-grained sugar, are commonly regarded as the finest . The most common and well-known is, but the definition of the word is somewhat vague and sometimes not suitable for a certain type of, so the word would be better in some cases.
are often served at Japanese tea ceremonies.