MACHINO HARBTEA, a new souvenir from Ibaraki Town in Japan, went on sale at stores in Ibaraki Town on the first of this month.

The original blend of herb tea was developed by the members of the Ibaraki 3 Hometown Supporters Club, and is inspired by the town's landscape of water, greenery, and soil.
I had the pleasure of producing this new souvenir for Ibaraki Town.

We have been producing the "Ibaraki 3 Furusato Supporters Club", a fan club for Ibaraki Town, since 2017. Five years have passed since its establishment, and the club now has about 950 supporters. The club has gradually spread by introducing the club to friends and acquaintances, and there are supporters not only in the town but also in other parts of Japan, New York, and around the world. Some have moved to Ibaraki because of IBAB3, and others have made a U-turn after 30 years in the town. The event has become an opportunity for people to connect with each other in a relaxed way.

So far, our supporters have been involved in a variety of town-themed activities, including the publication of the town's PR magazine "Sun," cherry blossom viewing in a park with cherry blossoms in full bloom, role-playing games in the summer at the headland by Lake Dry Lake, one of the town's famous spots, and participation in the production of a promotional video for the town's rice harvest festival to celebrate the harvest season. 

In 2020.

The year is 2020. The year is 2020, and the world is suffering from the Corona disaster. The year is 2020. As cities, towns and villages across the country announced the cancellation of events one after another, our supporters wondered what we could do. Our supporters thought, "What can we do? So, we decided that if we couldn't visit Ibaraki Town, we should bring the town to people far away from here! So we launched the "Iba 3 "No" Project," a project to develop souvenirs for the town.
The project members are a few Iba3 supporters who live near Ibaraki Town. First, we created an Instagram account for the project. First, we created an Instagram account for the project, where we reported on the launch of the project and periodically held Insta-lives to send out information to our followers. We also published a newspaper called "IBA3 Times" for the supporters of IBA3. We shared the progress with the supporters and received their feedback and opinions as we proceeded with the development.

Ibaraki Town is one of the largest producers and growers of agricultural products such as melons and potherb mustard in Japan. Most of the produce is shipped to the Tokyo metropolitan area, and it is not uncommon to see vegetables produced in Ibaraki Prefecture in supermarkets in Tokyo. There have been confectioneries and alcoholic beverages processed from the town's representative agricultural products. However, due to the lack of processing facilities and technical problems, we felt that many of the products were somewhat similar to those of other cities, towns, and villages. So, we decided to create a new kind of souvenir that could be processed and commercialized within the town, using agricultural products grown in the town.

Agriculture is the main industry in Ibaraki Town. In the past, farmers in the town used to grow their own tea to drink during tea time after working in the fields. Some brands of tea were named after the districts in the town, such as dried up tea. With this as a hint, the idea of making a tea to take a break from work and daily life was born. As we visited the producers and tea shops and talked to them, we found out that tea farmers in the town had quit production.

As we talked with the project members, we heard that there was a person in the town who was making naturally grown herb tea, so we immediately went to visit Mr. Kodama at the Dry Rice Herb Village. In spite of our sudden request, Mr. Kodama listened to us carefully and gladly agreed to cooperate with our project. Mr. Kodama provided us with 16 kinds of herbs from his fields, and through trial and error, the members of the team tried to find a well-balanced blend. Samples of the blends were sent to the supporters, and adjustments were made based on their impressions of the flavors, resulting in three blends that have never been made before. The three blends were named Waters, Greens, and Soils to evoke the image of the town's sky, abundant water sources, spreading fields, scattered trees in satoyama, and fields that bring abundant blessings.

The packaging is also simple and not too detailed so that the herb tea will remain as a permanent souvenir of the town. By choosing a tea can instead of a box, we also consider the environment by using it to store small items after drinking. We also want to share Machino Herb Tea with people all over the world! That's why we made a commercial in which a woman born and raised in Ibaraki town rides her bicycle to deliver 

Machino Keshiki.

After the product went on sale on the 1st, it seems to have sold better than expected, including in various parts of the town, and additional production was immediately decided. We hope that people will pick up some Keshiki as a gift for the end of the year or as a souvenir when they come back to the town.

THANK YOU WATCHING!!!​​​​​​​