It’s week 45 / 2025

This week, we continue to celebrate our new partnership with Takuya Niwa, one Japan’s last traditional futon makers. As the fifth-generation custodian of his family’s business, Niwa Futon, he carries 150 years of award-winning craftsmanship, making bedding entirely by hand. Along with Zen monk Tosei Shinabe, we collaborated on a zabuton and zafu – a set of two meditation cushions inspired by Zazen. Another fading tradition endures in the small workshops of Nara Prefecture, where the centuries-old craft of handmade bamboo tea tools lives on. With steady hands shaped by long lineages of skill and secret knowledge – usually passed from father to son – a tea whisk master and ladle artisan share this rare, refined art with us. Find both stories in our magazine.