Castella is a popular Japanese sponge cake made of sugar, flour, eggs, and starch syrup. Now a specialty of Nagasaki, the cake was brought by way of Portuguese merchants in the 16th century. The name is derived from Portuguese Pão de Castela, meaning “bread from Castile”. Castella was “brought back home” for the first time in more than 400 years in the mid-1990s by Paulo Duarte, a Portuguese workman who received training in Nagasaki, and his Japanese wife, Tomoko. Their shop “Castella do Paulo” is located in the government office area along the Tejo River and the factory is on the opposite bank of the river.