I cannot help but admire the precision of handmade “Yosegi-zaiku”

What a beautiful tea canister this is!

This canister is called, “Yosegi-zaiku”.

Yosegi-zaiku is a handicraft that is made using a traditional Japanese woodworking technique.

The special characteristic of Yosegi-zaiku is its colorful geometric patterning.

When you see this tea canister, you might recognize that its colorful geometric patterns are pictures, or printed matters.

But that’s your misidentification.

Surprisingly, the geometric patterns are expressed by a minute combination of various natural woods.

In addition, no coloring materials are used for that. The respective colors are the natural colors of the woods.

Yosegi-zaiku is a really amazing, traditional type of Japanese woodwork.

Remarkably, various multicolored natural woods are used for Yosegi-zaiku.

Their distinctive colors show the diversity of the natural woods.

Yosegi-zaiku has been the local specialty handicraft of Hakone Town since the Edo period.

Hakone Town has been blessed by beautiful lush greenery. So, Yosegi-zaiku was made from the bounty of those woods.

But today, raw Japanese or imported woods are used for Yosegi-zaiku.

Local production and consumption has become difficult with the changing times.

This is fate for every traditional Japanese craft.

Meanwhile, the traditional technique of Yosegi-zaiku has definitely been passed down to posterity.

Whenever I touch this tea canister, I get lost in my thoughts about beautiful scenery in Japan.

I cannot help but admire the precision of handmade Yosegi-zaiku.

That gives me a glimpse of the good relationship between humans and nature.

Seen from the sky, Japan has a lot of nature. But, lately I have noticed the distance between our modern lifestyles and nature.

We have a very convenient world because of the advent of various technology.

That’s great, but I often get tired of excessive convenience.

In that case, I always drink green tea to relax.

And this tea canister also helps me relax.