Recent years have seen a number of makers push creative efforts to revitalize the popularity of tea culture in Japan, with a morning reusable bottle service by a Nagoya tea house, vending machines offering cigarette-packaged green tea sticks, and green tea cubes released by Coca-Cola as some standout examples.

Japanese tea house and maker Gen Gen An is very much of the same mind, originally starting up as a pop-up shop hoping to fuse green tea drinking culture with fashionable trends in Shibuya and Ginza.

Their latest limited edition release is inspired by Baisao, a famous Buddhist monk who is credited with popularizing sencha and tea drinking in general in Japan during the Edo Period. Baisao was said to be close friends with Jakuchu Ito, a prolific tea loving artist of the same era. One of Ito's motifs as painter was the use of skulls, and a painting kept at his family temple Hozoji portraying two skulls is said to be of Baisao and Ito himself.

In celebration of both Baisao and Ito, Gen Gen An has released a special new limited edition batch of tea using techniques and traditions dating back 300 to when the two lived, and it fittingly comes in package featuring the skull portrait thanks to a collaboration with Hozoji Temple.

Special effort was made into consulting literature and experts in order to verify the production method. This tea has the unique smoky aroma of hand-roasted Kamairicha tea, enjoyedy people at that time, and a pleasant lingering sweet taste that lasts for a long time.

Due to the special manufacturing method, it is difficult to mass-produce, and only 60 bags of tea are available. The tea bags are made from "Soilon", a biomass material made from plant starch, which Gen Gen An utilizes to combat plastic waste but also provide a gentle tea drinking experience.

The limited edition tea can be ordered from Gen Gen An's online shop in Japan.