On Friday, the kitchen stove at the downtown Denver Buddhist Temple was packed with stainless-steel pans brimming with soft, glistening dough.
A radio pumped pop songs into the air, where the music mixed with sweet rice flour and swirled around a group of women as they prepared an enormous amount of mochi manju for the 50th Annual Denver Cherry Blossom Festival this weekend.
“We're trying to make 3,000,” said Gayle Goto, a longtime temple volunteer. “We make 1,500 with the azuki, or the red beans, and then 1,500 with the white ones.”
Mochi manju are bite-sized desserts, made from steamed, sweetened rice flour shaped around a filling. In this case, the mochi are being stuff with either a sweet red bean paste made from anko beans or a sweet white bean paste made from lima beans.
“If you go to Hawaii or some other places, they'll put fruit paste, jam, peanut butter, chocolate, ice cream. They do all that,” Goto said. “We've tried it in different years, but it doesn't sell well at our festival when we try different things. So we've just stayed with the sweet bean paste.”
This tradition began when the original Nisei, or children of Japanese immigrants, prepared for the city’ first Cherry Blossom Festival in the 1970s. As time passed, the responsibility was handed down from generation to generation. This year, the third generation is training the fourth.
“We’ve been doing this all our lives,” said DJ Ida, with a laugh. “Seriously. We grew up in this temple,” she said, gesturing to the others lining the large, flour-covered table.
“We used to look up to the elders,” Ida continued. “We are now the elders.”
The Denver Cherry Blossom Festival is a celebration of Japanese heritage and culture.
This annual festival takes place in Sakura Square, a downtown city block nestled between Larimer and Lawrence streets from 19th Street to 20th Street.
The festival takes its name from its location — “Sakura” is the Japanese word for cherry blossom.
This year, celebrations will take place on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Arts and entertainment include taiko drumming, Japanese artwork and flower arranging, a marketplace offering jewelry, anime, pottery, fine art, apparel, and informational booths representing Japanese and Japanese American organizations.
The Denver Buddhist Temple will be providing food for sale, which includes teriyaki chicken bento, teriyaki beef bowl, tofu bowl, teriyaki burger, gyoza, SPAM musubi, onigirazu, inari sushi, mochi manju, yaki manju, and dorayaki manju, karma korn, rie crispy sushi, and matcha vanilla pretzels.
Outside food vendors include Daboba, Island Noodles, Lucky Canes, Sweet Daruma Tea Wagon, and Confetti Confections.
Beverages include beer, sake and non-alcoholic options.
Admission is free and proceeds support the Denver Buddhist Temple and the Sakura Foundation.
