Texture is a big deciding factor when people like or dislike certain food item.
Azuki bean is an indispensable ingredient to make varieties of wagashi, Japanese sweets. We cook the beans, add sugar and make it into smooth paste (koshi-an) or chunky form (tsubushi-an). The prepared azuki bean has unique characteristics: flavor is sweet and is noticeably beany; color is dark purple, which reminds people of bitter chocolate. By the way, this is not a good thing, though, because it leads to a disappointment; texture is not creamy or smooth, but comes with slight graininess. It is bean.
In the past years I have introduced sweet azuki bean paste, both in Japan and here in America, to my friends and strangers in the form of gyuhi, nerikiri or manju (steamed bun stuffed with azuki paste) sweets. The result is that over seventy percent of them (they are non-Japanese and non-Asian people) showed negative reaction to it. Texture was not right. People expected smooth mouth-feel texture from the desert which they tasted. The flavor was second issue.
Let’s post a little more about texture on my future blog.