On February 10, 2020, an event was held in Paris where Morita Farm — an azuki bean farm based in Tokachi, Hokkaido — presented the uses and characteristics of their farm-grown azuki beans to pastry chefs from Parisian restaurants and tea salons, with the aim of encouraging them to use Morita Farm azuki in their own work.

I had the opportunity to cover the event in person, so here’s a report on how it went.

The State of Wagashi in Paris

Since 2019, Morita Farm azuki beans have been sold wholesale and retail through NISHIKIDORI, a high-end Japanese grocer in Paris. Before that, the only azuki available in France came either from outside the EU or from French-grown beans.

Azuki beans from a single farm, grown under carefully matched conditions in Hokkaido — a region known for both ideal growing conditions and generations of accumulated cultivation expertise — had simply never been available as a product before. So the fact that azuki from Tokachi, Hokkaido is rare enough on its own, and yet azuki specifically from Morita Farm in Tokachi is now available in Paris, says a great deal about the growing attention azuki is receiving.

In Paris, many people already know dorayaki thanks to the film Sweet Bean (An). Beyond TORAYA’s Paris boutique and Patisserie TOMO, a new daifuku shop has opened on the Left Bank, and a tea house called OGATA has also opened its doors — all signs that Parisians are getting more and more chances to try wagashi.

Against that backdrop, the event’s purpose was to convey how using azuki that comes from a single farm — and is therefore consistent in quality, cooks quickly, and has a rich flavor — could become a valuable point of differentiation in the wagashi scene going forward.

Around 50 people attended, including pastry chefs, cooking-class instructors, and members of the press. The event was organized into four parts.

Part One: An Introduction to Traditional Wagashi

This segment introduced ways of using azuki through a showcase of traditional Japanese wagashi that capture the flavors of the seasons. To demonstrate how much the flavor changes when traditional wagashi are made with Morita Farm azuki, wagashi craftsman Kenichi Iwasaki gave a live presentation, making dorayaki and sakura mochi — both the Kansai-style and Kanto-style versions. He also demonstrated the entire process of cooking azuki from scratch into oshiruko (sweet red bean soup).

Part Two: The Nutritional Properties of Azuki

Using images shown live online, Dr. Jun Kato gave a presentation on the characteristics of “Kitaroman,” a Tokachi-grown azuki variety. It’s well known that azuki has fewer calories than chocolate, but beyond that, he explained that Kitaroman from Tokachi, Hokkaido contains remarkably high levels of polyphenols compared to other azuki varieties — as much as ten times the polyphenol content of red wine. He also shared experimental data showing that after animals consumed azuki polyphenols, their cholesterol levels dropped and their blood sugar avoided sharp spikes. Attendees listened intently to the idea that eating azuki isn’t just a delicious part of traditional Japanese cuisine, but genuinely beneficial for both health and beauty.

Part Three: Proposals for Using Azuki in French Cuisine

This segment focused on introducing azuki through cooking. Personal chef Pascal Chabot presented three dishes.

The first was an azuki salad — not simply beans tossed into a salad, but one featuring azuki croquettes. The second was an azuki potage: a rich, velvety soup with the flavor of azuki coming through clearly, the kind you’d want to go back for seconds of. The third was an azuki tart — unsweetened. It was packed with beautifully cooked whole azuki beans that hadn’t split open, and the cross-section of the tart was more striking than any azuki tart I’d ever seen.

Chef Chabot explained that his approach was to find ways to keep azuki delicious while preserving its natural character — making the most of its polyphenols and other flavorful qualities. His proposals lightly overturned the Japanese assumption that azuki isn’t suited to savory cooking, and that turning it into sweetened anko is really the only way to enjoy it. It was an eye-opening experience.

Part Four: The Azuki Recipe Contest

The final segment featured presentations from an azuki cooking contest. Women from around the world who work as chefs with Meet My Mama had each proposed their own azuki dish for the occasion.

Every dish was delicious and difficult to rank, but the contest winner was a dessert proposed by the Italian “mama” — a tiramisu made with azuki cream.

Here are some of the other azuki dishes the “mamas” proposed:

• Sri Lanka — Spicy azuki dumplings
• Egypt — Azuki falafel (served with an original sauce)
• Brazil — Azuki hot dog (served in bread)
• Morocco — Azuki chocolate cake

In Closing

This event approached, from many different angles, the idea of using azuki as a high-value ingredient for discerning customers. The ways professional chefs reimagined azuki were genuinely inventive.

What struck and delighted me most, as the writer, was meeting Chef Chabot and his dishes — someone from a food culture where azuki isn’t part of everyday cooking, yet who managed to bring out the very best in the bean’s flavor and thought carefully about what its ideal texture should be. He later told me that discovering an azuki that could be cooked al dente, without falling apart, was essential to him, and that he was particular about cooking the beans so they wouldn’t split open before finishing his dishes.

In Japan too, there’s a wagashi-making technique for cooking azuki in a way that keeps the beans from splitting, preserving their shape and character. This event also taught me that, alongside sharing the traditional way of eating azuki in Japanese wagashi, there’s real value in spreading azuki further afield by focusing specifically on how to cook azuki al dente — and on how to use azuki once cooked that way.

Event Organizer
Morita Farm
https://www.azukilife.com/

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mika Wada, Editor-in-Chief, Azuki Editorial Team
During a period when swelling and fatigue made both her work and parenting difficult, she found her way back to good health by eating azuki brown rice meals and her own original azuki cereal every day. Having previously worked in the beauty industry, she had already come to appreciate how essential daily diet is to beauty that shines from within — which led her to start Azuki.tokyo as an ambassador spreading the goodness of azuki to women around the world.