Opening the "What If" Box
Hello everyone! This is Keko from the online staff. ☺️
In moments of free time, I often find myself quietly wondering, "What if...?" or "What if it wasn't...?"
It is not as if these thoughts lead to definitive answers, yet I find a strange comfort in these quiet moments of contemplation.
When I was a child, there was a gadget in the animated series Doraemon called the "What If Box" (Moshimo Box). With just a single sentence—"What if the world were like this...?"—it allowed you to step into and experience a completely different reality.
Even now as an adult, I still open that "What If Box" inside my mind from time to time.
For instance, when my usual route home is under construction, I might walk down a path I rarely take.
Unfamiliar scenery.
A tiny shop discovered for the first time.
A garden blooming with seasonal flowers.
By simply shifting the path a tiny bit, the familiar neighborhood begins to feel like a completely different place.
Familiarity is undeniably convenient. You can walk without thinking. You reach your destination without losing your way. Yet, on the other hand, it might also blind us to the small moments of beauty we could have otherwise noticed.
That is why, every now and then, I open the "What If Box."
What if there were no teapots?
What if we couldn't brew tea with hot or cold water?
What if we lived in a world where drinking tea was forbidden?
When I let my mind wander through these thoughts, things I once took for granted suddenly begin to feel uniquely precious.
We are a tea company. Every day, we face tea, craft tea, and deliver tea. That is precisely why, occasionally, we feel the urge to imagine a world without tea.
If tea did not exist, what would people long for?
Would it be the rising steam?
The gentle aroma filling the air?
The time spent sitting around a teacup with someone?
Or perhaps that quiet moment at the end of the day when one can finally exhale a deep breath of relief?
As I wander through these imaginations, another "What if" naturally emerges.
What if we could share the allure of Japanese tea in a form completely different from teapot-brewed tea?
What if there were a way to help even those who rarely drink tea fall in love with it?
Asking these layered questions often marks the beginning of creating something new.
Our "Ujikin Soft" soft-serve ice cream—a product that is "not liquid tea itself"—was born from just such a thought.
Could we express the satisfying depth of tea through the new medium of soft-serve ice cream?
Could we allow people to more casually enjoy the lingering aftertaste resembling a bowl of thin matcha (usucha)?
From these simple "What ifs," a single product came to life.
A "What if" is by no means mere fantasy.
It is about gently questioning what we take for granted.
It is about stepping onto a path we do not usually walk.
Waiting at the end of that path might be a landscape no one has ever seen before.
Here at Nakamura Tokichi, as we continue to face our tea, we plan to occasionally open our "What If Box." If the scenery we discover beyond it can bring even a small touch of warmth to your tea time, we could not be happier.
