Three different teas and Hasamiyaki ceramics make tea time with the Studio Ghibli star cute and classy.
Totoro seems like a pretty laid back guy. Sure, he might occasionally roar loudly enough to produce a gust of wind or spend a night making an entire grove of trees sprout from the ground, but most of the time he seems content to quietly relax and enjoy the pleasures of the slow-paced life in rural Japan.
Basically, he’d be the ideal partner to kick back and enjoy a cup of tea with, so it makes sense that he’s now getting his own teaware collection, and even a line of teas to make and drink in them!
The drinkware is all Hasamiyaki ceramics, made by artists in Nagasaki Prefecture carrying on the region’s pottery traditions that began some 400 years ago.
In addition to the teapot, which has a removable metallic strainer inside, there’s a Japanese-style teacup…
…and since it’s not a proper tea break without something to nibble on, a snack plate, on which one of the soot sprites from the Studio Ghibli anime makes an appearance too.
▼ An especially cute point is how if you position the morsels just right, it looks like Totoro has been munching on them.
There’s also a wooden Tototo-shaped tea scoop, which can also be used as a sugar spoon or a place to set a used tea bag.
As for Totoro’s teas themselves, the tea bags, housed inside adorable metal canisters, come in three varieties, starting with a mikan (mandarin orange)-flavored green tea.
Next is a sweet potato-scented genmai (brown rice) tea…
…and finally, there’s a corn tea.
Generally, Japan doesn’t go for extra flavors or aromas added to its green teas, but all of the additions here have a rustic quality that seems like a fitting match for Totoro, given the beautiful bucolic setting of his anime film.
The tea scoop is priced at 990 yen (US$7.50), the teacup 1,980, the plate 2,860, and the pot 9,680, and each tin contains eight tea bags for 2,484 yen. The whole lineup is available now at Ghibli specialty shop Donguri Kyowakoku and through the chain’s online shop here.
Source: Donguri Kyowakoku
Top image: Donguri Kyowakoku
Insert images: Donguri Kyowakoku (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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