At IKKYU, we have been offering two ways to buy our teas. One wrapped in a beautiful washi paper and the other in a plain bag.
While the washi wrapping is a wonderful way to showcase the products we carry, we felt we could do better to celebrate the exceptional quality of our teas when it came to our plain bags.
Up until now every producer would pack their tea with their own standard plain bag, meaning that they can be quite different from a product to another.
That is fine, since IKKYU does not directly bag the tea leaves, for obvious product quality and safety reasons.
Every tea producer has their own tools, method and settings depending on their teas. Basically you will not process a delicate gyokuro like a pan-fried kamairicha for example.
Nevertheless, we wanted to come up with a solution to improve the way our teas are presented in their simple bags. And we did.
We are proud to roll out our first IKKYU-branded plain bags. It took time to find the right one, send samples to the producers to see if they would agree and discuss technical issues.
Of course, we chose the finest package that could support our design ideas. Once everything was set we sent the new bags to the producers so that they can now pack their teas in it. This also brought us to a close collaboration with a famous packing company in Japan. Little did we know that the shiny copper printed logo is actually applied... by hand (like many other packing processes for high-end labels on Shochu or Sake actually). These new bags also include much more information on the back, about the region of origin on top of brewing instructions.
It may seem a little thing, but this means a lot for us, as the producers agreed once again to trust us to carry their finest teas with our brand. That unique trust is also a commitment for us to work even harder (is it possible Joëlle ?), provide you with more information about the products you like and again bring you as close as possible to the real stars : the tea producers themselves.
We hope that you will like the new bags as we do, also knowing that these also allow us to reduce the use of stickers and be even more environment-friendly (BTW did you know that the blue bubble wrapping we use to pack is made with 100% recycled material?).
As of May 2021 we already have changed 8 products, and will try to roll out these new bags by the end of the year for all our 50g loose-leaf teas.
Feel free to share your impressions with us!
