Yamato Aroma Shichimi Blending Experience

A Workshop for All Five Senses, Made with Nara Botanicals and Yoshino Cedar.

Choose from Nara-grown botanicals and aromatic ingredients, grind them in a Yoshino cedar mortar, and blend a shichimi that is entirely your own. Focusing on aroma offers a quiet, restorative pause and an opportunity to reconsider the relationship between food and wellbeing.

Experience

The Experience

Learn about the origins of shichimi and Nara's herbal culture

Explore the aromas of approximately fifteen ingredients from Nara

Grind the botanicals in a Yoshino cedar mortar

Choose the blend through your own senses

Take home your one-of-a-kind Yamato Shichimi

Value

What the Experience Offers

A mindful moment that engages all five senses

An encounter with Nara's herbal culture, food culture, and craftsmanship

Accessible to participants of different ages and backgrounds

Enjoyable without specialist knowledge

Adaptable to programs focused on regional resources, wellbeing, food education, and cultural experience

Materials

Nara Ingredients Used in the Shichimi

The ingredients used in the Yamato Aroma Shichimi-Making Kit and the stories behind them.

Sansho

These green sansho berries are left on the tree until they ripen to red, a form rarely seen in ordinary shops. They have a stronger tingling heat than green sansho, with a rich, vivid character and a remarkably fresh citrus aroma.

Chili Pepper

Grown in Yoshino without agricultural chemicals or chemical fertilizers, using okara as fertilizer. The farm works through agricultural and welfare collaboration, and weeds are removed by hand. The peppers are carefully ground on a stone mill to make ichimi, producing a confident aroma and heat.

Yamato Toki Leaves

Yamato Toki, a variety of Japanese angelica, is a perennial plant in the parsley family. Its leaves were reclassified for non-pharmaceutical use in 2012, drawing attention to their wider potential. Nara Prefecture has supported efforts to expand cultivation. For the shichimi, the leaves are roasted to soften their distinctive aroma.

Kihada Leaves

Kihada is a deciduous tree in the citrus family. Its bark is known as the herbal ingredient obaku and has long been used in traditional preparations such as Daranisuke. The bark has also been used as a yellow dye. Leaves collected when the trees are felled are used in the shichimi.

Yamato Tachibana

Yamato Tachibana is regarded as an ancestral Japanese citrus and an endemic species of Japan. It is classified as near threatened and appears in the Kojiki, Nihon Shoki, and Man'yoshu. Both its dried peel and leaves are used in the shichimi.

Yoshino Nikkei

An aromatic tree in the camphor family that grows naturally in Japan, Yoshino Nikkei is often described as Japanese cinnamon. Its root bark was once used for nikki drinks and yatsuhashi sweets, but domestically grown Nikkei has now become very rare.

Yoshino Craft

Yoshino Cedar Chopstick Workshop Kien

Kobo Kien creates the cedar mortars and Kuromoji pestles used in the experience. The workshop is based in Shimoichi, the birthplace of Yoshino cedar split chopsticks.

Recognized as one of Japan's three most beautiful forest regions, Yoshino cedar is known for its fine growth rings, appealing color and aroma, and resilient character. Kobo Kien makes full use of offcuts left after construction timber is produced, carrying forward the wisdom and techniques of earlier generations while taking on new ideas.

Nara botanicals and spices, a Yoshino cedar mortar, and a Kuromoji pestle came together in this collaborative handmade shichimi kit.

Shichimi blending with a Yoshino cedar mortar and ingredients from Nara

Background

How the Shichimi Came to Be

Kyoto, Nagano, and Tokyo are well known for shichimi. It is said to have begun as a blend of seven carefully selected ingredients inspired by traditional herbal medicine.

Southern Nara was the setting of historical herb-gathering events. The idea began with a question: what if Nara had a distinctive shichimi made from its own botanicals? Yoshino cedar, one of Nara Prefecture's celebrated materials, then became part of the collaboration.

Making the blend by hand encourages curiosity about the botanicals and allows each participant to adjust the aroma and heat. The aim is a shichimi made entirely from Nara ingredients that can be enjoyed for both flavor and fragrance.

The Blending Process

The experience begins by placing sansho in a Yoshino cedar mortar, then pounding, crushing, and grinding it with a Kuromoji pestle. The remaining ingredients are blended in afterward.

Scene

Ideas for Business and Group Programs

Local-government events promoting regional resources

Corporate health and wellbeing programs

Employee training and team building

Tourism and cultural experience events

Lectures and experiential classes for schools, universities, and educational institutions

Programs at department stores, commercial facilities, and hotels

Format

Program Formats

Programs held in Nara

Traveling programs in other prefectures

In-depth experiences for small groups

A lecture combined with a workshop

Program content, duration, and group size available for discussion

Proof

Selected Activities and Recognition

Expo 2025 Osaka, KansaiExhibited at the Nara Prefecture booth

Event AppearancesHeijo no Toyohoki, Craft Expo, Hodokeru Kampo Market, Uda Medicinal Herb Festival, and more

Osaka UniversityDelivered a lecture

Nippon no TakaramonoGrand Prix at the Nara and national competitions; Third Place at the Singapore World Competition

Discuss a Workshop or Talk

Early-stage inquiries are welcome. You can contact us even if the purpose, number of participants, venue, or preferred date has not yet been decided.