This project involved designing tea packaging which fused British tea drinking culture with the traditional Japanese Tea Ceremony. The brand identity 'Shouban' translates to 'Accompany' in English and 'To accompany a regular customer' in Japanese. It was difficult to find a word that had the same connotations in both languages.
These are sketches to create a concept for the tin shape and the cover design for the tea packaging. It was decided that the cover illustration should fuse the landscape of Japan and the Tea Ceremony with traditional British porcelain, to show the fusion of cultures.
The final designs were inspired by traditional Japanese tea. A lot of research was conducted into how Green Tea is made and each tin represents a different flavour of Green Tea. The rose on the mug is commonly associated with British gardens to establish the connection between British and Japanese tea drinking culture.
On the sides of the design will be a short history about how Japanese tea was sailed to Britain. There will also be instructions for brewing the tea where the consumers are encouraged to use a diffuser because the product is loose leaf tea.
These are mockups of the final tea packaging.