Since the Japanese company Kinseiken Seika created Mizu Shingen Mochi (which became known as “raindrop cake” in English) in 2014, they’ve attracted pilgrims in search of the purest, most aesthetically pleasing thing they could eat. However, photographers need to act fast—the subject melts and evaporates in 20 minutes.

The raindrop cake is, by no culinary definition, a cake. In place of deliciousness, it offers the alluring promise of tactile, edible (and still potable) water. So enticing is the mostly-flavorless, gelatinous droplet that it has made its way to Brooklyn, New York.

To make the beautiful-but-bland raindrop cake palatable, chefs pair it with roasted, nutty soybean powder and a brown sugar syrup called kuromitsu. When it comes to marketing something as dessert, beauty only goes so far.