nana’s green tea UENO MARUI
Tokyo, Japan / 2012

“The four seasons”

Nanaha Corporation is a company that introduces “a new form of Japan” to the world through “matcha” (powdered green tea). They arrange high grade matchas in modern style and provide them as a menu such as matcha latte. And their intention is to make the space into a “contemporary style tea room”, not a “Japanese style tea room”.

From the ancient times Japanese people lived adapting to the four seasons.
In the Muromachi era a Japanese-style room was born, it made indoor life more comfortable and people gradually spent much time in a room.
The comfort of indoor life, however, brought about also distance between people and outside, they tried to put a sense of seasons inside the house to commune with nature by painting a landscape or beauties of nature on a thick papered sliding door or wall and by placing colors according to the season.
These things represent Japanese feelings that we can’t live without nature.
It’s one of the greatest cultures that we thoroughly enjoy the four seasons and give the best treat to the guest.

In nana’s green tea Ueno Marui shop we divide the space into four parts; spring as　an entrance, summer, autumn, winter. Therefore people can feel a change of the seasons by walking around the shop and choose which season would be perfect to enjoy the tea break depending on their mood.
In addition we apply images of four seasons to the space, printed on a special transparent paper to make people feel a change of the seasons.

Photos by Keisuke Miyamoto