In May 2025, mirume collaborated with Hironobu Tsujiguchi, pastry chef and founder of Fortissimo H, on a Japanese tea pairing event. Across three seatings, sixty guests experienced a dessert course paired with five teas selected and presented by mirume.

To our knowledge, this was Mr. Tsujiguchi’s first collaboration with a Japanese tea specialist.

The five teas served were:

1. Ice-extracted Imperial Tribute Kabusecha Tea

2. Kamairicha Tea

3. Japanese black tea with kuromoji, developed by the farmer

4. Semi-oxidized Japanese tea

5. Suna-iri, Sand Roasted hojicha

This was not a tea ceremony.

It was a pairing session, structured in the same way a sommelier structures a wine pairing. Each tea was selected for its role in the context of food, not for what it represents in isolation.

Tea as Ingredient

In the same year, Strings Hotel Nagoya introduced a mirume collaboration course.

Tea appeared in four different forms within a single menu:

Smoke
Smoked foie gras and mango churros finished with smoke from burning tea tree branches.

Broth
Hojicha consommé soup, with hojicha extracted through consommé broth.

Base
Hitsumabushi rice cooked with hojicha.

Sauce
Roasted duck with low-temperature hojicha tea sauce, made from a tea so rare that its yield is roughly half that of gyokuro.

Four dishes. Four functions.

Smoke. Broth. Base. Sauce.

Not once did tea appear on the menu simply as a beverage.