"Mahoroba Kurotani," a local organization of the Kurotani district in Daiwa-Cho, Mihara City, Associate Professor Naoko Ito of the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, and students from the School of Letters have worked on and completed a project called "Tanoshu Nominchai - 楽しゅう 飲みん茶い (which translates to Enjoy Drinking Tea)," a collaboration project between the remnants of the famous Asano Family tea, which was once an offering to the feudal lord, in the Kurotani district and the Mihara Daruma doll of Mihara City.

Students from our university have utilized their youthful and free imagination to design the "Kurotani Daruma," which is based on the traditional Mihara Daruma doll. The Kurotani Daruma (Mihara Daruma doll), designed to resemble a tea container and comes with a special Bingo Kasuri textile bag to keep the Daruma dolls in, aims to promote both the tea and traditional crafts.

This Kurotani Daruma (Mihara Daruma), which is loaded with Bingo's specialties, is displayed in the East Wing of the Hiroshima Prefectural Office as one of Hiroshima's products.

The members of the project are enthusiastic to continue to uncover traditional crafts and create goods based on these crafts that allow people to enjoy their tea-drinking experience in the future.

• It was a very interesting and inspiring experience. I had only known about Sencha green tea through pictures and texts, but through the project, I have gained a deeper understanding by actually experiencing and feeling it first-hand. I hope that the display at the prefectural office will please the local people and the craftsmen, and I hope that the people of Hiroshima will become aware of the revival of the tea offered to the Asano clan, and the Mihara Daruma doll with its new design, which will definitely help shape up the future of the local community.
• By interacting directly with the craftspeople, I felt the importance of knowing and paying attention to the value and the current state of the traditional industry. I found it very rewarding to see the project gradually take shape.
• I have been collecting folk toys since I was in junior high school, so I am very proud to have been involved in the creation of a green Daruma, a local toy that has not been seen very often before. Also, the red color of the Daruma doll was considered to ward off illnesses, so I am glad that the tradition of the red Daruma was kept amid the coronavirus crisis this year. When we designed our Daruma doll, we learned the importance of thinking from the perspective of the producer. As for the name of the Daruma doll, we wanted to include the name of the place similar to many other local Daruma dolls, and as a result, I think it was a good idea to include the name "Kurodani." The display of the Daruma doll at the prefectural office was very unexpecting. I hope that when people visit the office and see the Daruma doll, it will be recognized as a folk toy of Hiroshima. From now on, I will be passing on the task to my juniors, but I would like to help in any way I can.