Hot on trend in Japan is the idea of sustainable living and eco-awareness within the home. In Tokyo central where a strip of garden is considered a luxury and a balcony is used for drying laundry, even a small urban garden on your balcony can be difficult to maintain. Such is the popularity of Japanese homeware products with a nod to natural ecofriendly materials and a rural aesthetic.
LUPICA Flowering Tea
Short of a few trips back to visit relatives in the countryside each year, many Japanese have found ways of bringing nature into the home. A cup of tea before the cramped morning commutes through some of the world’s busiest stations, can brighten a typically cold winter morning in Tokyo. One of my favorite brands is Lupicia, which produces a variety of Japanese teabags that bloom when water is added. But for the urban gardener in Japan that prefers tea of the loose variety, the storage is of the utmost importance to maintain product freshness.
Winners of the Good Design award in 2010 and Design Plus in 2011, Gato Mikio, have crafted a range of lacquered wooden tea canisters to preserve the shelf life of tea. The craftsmen have been hailed for their design’s beauty and functionality as well as their interest in using natural fine grain wood. Advantages of a wooden canister over the regular metal variety include improved moisture retention and temperature control, so pertinent to maintaining the tea’s freshness.
Gato Mikio Wooden Tea Canisters
Gato Woodwork, started in Japan in 1908, has been attuning it’s handcrafting techniques using skilled artisans and authentic lacquer methods. Yamanaka, an area famous for such Japanese lacquer work, is where all Gato Mikio canisters are made. The wiped lacquer technique they use is an intricate process that involves painting a layer of lacquer, wiping it off, drying it, and repeating the process until the desired result is reached. Only raw wooden materials with the finest grains can be used and the high quality lacquer goods from rural Yamagata have long been cherished by many city dwellers in Tokyo.
With a plethora of poor quality lacquerware on the market, the emphasis on creating wooden tea boxes synonymous with Yamagata’s famous lacquer methods, as well as accentuating contemporary living, was a top priority for designers, Akio and Nobuo. I should hope that with a set of perfectly sealed wooden containers, I would be ready to host a modern day Japanese tea party to rival any tea ceremony in Kyoto. Although I7d best be stocking up on the Sakura tea with Spring just around the corner.
