Nobumasa Takahashi Wasanbon Sugar Skulls

Still looking for unique Halloween items for your upcoming gathering? These wasanbon sugar skulls would make a great conversational piece.

Designed by Nobumasa Takahashi, the sugar skulls are made of wasanbon, a very fine and expensive Japanese sugar with a texture resembling icing sugar. Wasanbon has a buttery creamy taste and can only be made in the Winter months, when it is dry. The sugarcane used to make wasanbon is harvested in December and the sugar is processed no later than February. The production of this sugar is complex, and the entire process takes approximately 20 days and is all done by hand.

Wasanbon means “Japanese three trays”, where at one point in the 8-step process, the sugar is laid out on a tray to be polished. This is done by adding water to the sugar and then kneading it until the sugar crystals are polished into a fine granular texture. Traditionally, this 'polishing technique' was done 3 times, hence the name wasanbon (bon meaning tray and san meaning three).When the sugar is polished, it has to be dried that same day to prevent molding.

The Nobumasa Takahashi wasanbon skulls are offered in a package of 18 pieces - 9 white and 9 black. They are all natural and bamboo charcoal gives the black ones their dark color.

The skulls can be purchased at Spoon & Tamago’s online store.