Discoveries from Setouchi
Japan's Hidden Gems
Every week, one story from the Setouchi region — a craft, a food, a habit, a custom — that deserves to be known before it disappears.
Get every story →The Color of Victory: Japan's 1,000-Year-Old Blue
Awa Ai indigo has been made in Tokushima for over a millennium. Samurai wore the deepest shade — kachi-iro — into battle. A handful of artisans still know how to make it.
Read the story →The Tanuki We Walk Past
Twelve hundred years of kiln fire. A cartoon figurine the world already knows. And the village of Shigaraki — one of Japan's Six Ancient Kilns — still waiting to be discovered.
Read the story →The Flower That Stayed Home
Japan produces 1.3 billion chrysanthemums a year and has almost zero share of global cut-flower exports. The story of a $6 billion market that never boarded the plane.
Read the story →Coming next
Stories worth waiting for.
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Subscribe free →The morning walk that the oldest people in the Seto Inland Sea all share
Bizen pottery — 800-year-old kilns that need no glaze, only fire and time
The fermented secret behind Sanuki Udon that most visitors never notice
Shodoshima olive oil — Japan's Mediterranean secret, grown since 1908
The kimono worn once and stored — and the craftspeople behind every thread
The private morning tea ritual that rural Japanese households kept for generations