Ohno Charcoal Factory on the Noto Peninsula produces charcoal for tea ceremonies and braziers using Japanese oak and sawtooth oak as the main materials. To produce quality natural sawtooth oak, they made a forest by self-growing and planting saplings from acorns. Today, this has grown as an environmental activity through tree-planting with tea masters from both the local area and other parts of the country.

The tea master Sen no Rikyu is believed to be the first tea master who discovered the beauty of charcoal in the tea ceremony. Kikusumi charcoal is named after the pattern of the radially cracked cross-section surface, which looks like a beautifully blooming flower of Kiku, or chrysanthemum as it is known in English. There is a refined Nerikiri, a kind of raw sweet for tea ceremony, which is shaped like Kikusumi charcoal. It is called ‘Hahaso’. (Hahaso is an ancient word seen in Waka poems in Manyoshu, The Anthology of Ten Thousand Leaves, from the 7th-8th Century. It is a collective term for small trees within a motherly forest such as sawtooth oak, Konara oak and chestnut.)

The person who makes these sweets is Yuki Hagino of Nogashi Sweets Laboratory. She lives in Wajima in Ishikawa Prefecture. The sweets were created for the tea ceremony, to which locals are invited after working to plant sawtooth oak trees.
The ink colour is achieved by mixing edible charcoal and black sesame seeds into the regular sweet Azuki bean paste. The inside paste is made from Noto Dainagon Azuki beans. Both these kinds of Azuki beans are organic and grown in house. Sweet bean pastes are created using a natural furnace made from diatomaceous earth and small branch charcoals called Wase, which are produced through the charcoal-making process.
The sweets are shaped by a single tool called a ‘triangle stick’. The edges of the sweets will be shaped as if there is a skin on them, with their gradation expressing the charcoal fire. The sweets are finished by coating them with black sesame seeds ground in a mortar, to give the effect of charcoal. At a glance, it really does look like a piece of charcoal.
At first the guests are surprised by the realistic charcoal-looking finish of the sweets, but soon they have happy smiles on their faces because of the elegant and mellow flavour of sesame seeds and the soft sweetness from sugar beets. ‘I will get burned’ – some enjoy making jokes too.

Through sawtooth oak, locally produced Azuki beans, sesame seeds and Hahaso – Kikusumi shaped sweets carefully hand-made piece by piece, we think of the grace of the motherly forest which has provided for us for a very long time.

　
Reference: Ohno Charcoal Factory