KITCHIBE: A Brand Born from a Fragrance Company, Recreating Scenes of Japan

“With sincerity as our foundation, we hone our skills and sensibilities, and through fragrance and flavor bring richness and fulfillment to people’s lives. This is our mission, our pride, and our joy.”
― Taichi Shiono (CEO, Kitchibe Co., Ltd. / President and Representative Director, Shiono Koryo Kaisha, Ltd.)​

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Basic Information

• Brand name: KITCHIBE
• Company established: December 26, 2016​
• Representative: Taichi Shiono​
• Parent company: Shiono Koryo Kaisha, Ltd. (founded in 1808; 100% ownership)​
• Location: 19 Kanda Konya-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo​
• Official website: https://www.kitchibe.com
• Official online store: https://store.kitchibe.com

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The Founder and the Brand’s Origins

A 200-Year Story Beginning in Osaka’s Doshomachi

Tracing the origins of the name Kitchibe takes us back to Osaka in the Edo period. In 1808, the fifth year of the Bunka era, Shionoya Kichibei Shoten was founded in Doshomachi, Osaka, as a wholesale medicinal-ingredients merchant dealing in Japanese and Chinese medicines, pearls, and other goods. From the mid-Edo period onward, officially recognized trade guilds known as kusuridane nakagai nakama flourished in Doshomachi, making it one of Japan’s leading centers of the medicinal-ingredients trade.

The founder, Kichibei, received permission from his employer, Shionoya Tobei, to establish an independent business under the family trade name. The name Kichibei was subsequently passed down through successive generations. The third Kichibei became an influential figure in the industry, serving, among other roles, as the head of the Osaka medicinal-ingredients wholesale brokers’ association. He was also the first principal of what is said to be Japan’s third-oldest kindergarten, now Aishu Kindergarten, and a founding member of the Osaka Doshū School of Pharmacy, now Osaka Medical and Pharmaceutical University. His work extended beyond running a medicinal-ingredients wholesaler to contributing to education and the local community.

From Medicinal-Ingredients Merchant to Fragrance Manufacturer

A major turning point for Shionoya Kichibei Shoten came in 1908. The fourth Kichibei took over the family business and, recognizing the future potential of aroma ingredients, shifted its focus from medicinal ingredients to fragrances and flavors. In 1917, he established the Hosei Chemical Research Institute in Iwaya, Nada-ku, Kobe, embarking on full-scale research and development.

In 1921, the company developed Japan’s first lemon essence through integrated domestic production. It subsequently expanded the range to include orange, banana, and other essences, which were marketed as Fan Brand essences in 1924. The interruption of fragrance and flavor imports from Britain and Germany following the outbreak of World War I in 1914 is said to have provided the impetus for developing domestic aroma ingredients.

In 1929, the business was incorporated as Shiono Koryo Kaisha, Ltd. It subsequently established a firm position in both flavors (food flavorings) and fragrances, expanding overseas into Taiwan, China, the United States, and other markets. It celebrated its 200th anniversary in 2008.​

The major pharmaceutical company Shionogi, incidentally, originated as an offshoot of Shionoya Kichibei Shoten.​

Taichi Shiono: An Innovator Leading a Long-Established Company

Essential to the story of Kitchibe is Taichi Shiono, a descendant of the founding family and the person who conceived the brand. He was born in Kobe in October 1983.​

After serving as Representative Director and Executive Vice President of Shiono Koryo, he became President and Representative Director around 2024. He also serves as Kitchibe’s CEO.

In one interview, Taichi Shiono described Shiono Koryo’s corporate philosophy as follows.

“The most important thing for continuing over the long term is to say, ‘Let’s be sincere.’ We conduct business properly, earn a reasonable profit, give back to our employees, and contribute to society. What matters is keeping that cycle working properly.”
― Taichi Shiono​

While grounding his work in the principle of sincerity handed down for at least 200 years, Taichi Shiono has continued to pursue challenges beyond it.

“In a fragrance and flavor industry strongly inclined toward stability, the company stands out for its innovative businesses, such as creating fragrances from scratch rather than starting with a client’s order.”
― From an introduction in PHP’s management magazine​

Fragrance and flavor manufacturers normally operate on a B2B (business-to-business) model, blending scents in response to client requests. Shiono Koryo followed this traditional model for many years. Taichi Shiono, however, took on the challenge of establishing a brand that would design its own fragrances and deliver them directly to consumers. That brand is Kitchibe.​

Kitchibe Co., Ltd. was established on December 26, 2016. A wholly owned subsidiary of Shiono Koryo, it describes itself as “a fragrance design company spun off from Shiono Koryo, founded in 1808.” Its official press release clearly articulated its purpose: “To translate Japan’s olfactory culture into fragrances and deliver them to the world.”

Its business comprises four pillars: (1) scenting spaces (Space Design); (2) planning and selling scented products (Product Design); (3) workshops led by perfumers and marketers (Workshop); and (4) operating and selling its own KITCHIBE brand (Brand Holder).​

A Brand Born from a Three-Way Collaboration

There is another important context to the creation of Kitchibe’s products: the brand emerged not from Shiono Koryo alone, but from a collaboration among three companies.

The first, of course, is Shiono Koryo. This fragrance and flavor specialist, with a history of more than 200 years, is responsible for every aspect of the scents.​

The second is Housen-gama, a Mino-ware ceramics manufacturer based in Toki, Gifu Prefecture. Since its founding in 1980, it has produced tableware for professional use, including bowls for major restaurant chains.
Concerned about a shrinking market, second-generation head Yoshitake Kitamura began developing an original clay around 2001. After three years, he created the company’s proprietary HOUSEN-NENDO clay. Later collaborations with outside designers led to likestone, a ceramic series with marble-like patterns. Unveiled at the Maison & Objet international trade fair in Paris in January 2016, likestone attracted international attention.

The third is Qurz Inc., led by product designer Takumi Shimamura. Born in Kochi Prefecture, Shimamura graduated from the Department of Design at Tokyo Zokei University and joined Subaru, then Fuji Heavy Industries, in 1989. He worked on the development of the first- and second-generation Legacy and on concept-car design in the advanced development division. After moving to Subaru’s design subsidiary TAG International in 1994, he established his own design studio, Qurz, in 2005.​

Shimamura became widely known for monacca, a bag made from cedar grown in Umaji Village, Kochi Prefecture, launched in 2004. His enduring commitment to organic materials such as wood and paper has won him many admirers.

What distinguishes Shimamura as a designer is that he does not simply refine a product’s appearance. He remains involved throughout the process, from planning and constructing a business model to selling at overseas trade fairs.

“We cannot be satisfied unless we sell, whatever it takes. We think about what we need to do to sell, and work with the client to build a system that will have become a functioning business a few years later.”
― Takumi Shimamura​

Kitchibe was born where these three companies intersect: at least 200 years of fragrance-making expertise, the clay craftsmanship of Mino ware, and a sensibility for organic design. The brand’s theme is “Japanese craftsmanship × organic design.” Shiono Koryo creates the scents, Housen-gama fires the stone-like ceramic diffusers, and Shimamura oversees the brand’s overall design and production.​

The brand debuted at Maison & Objet in Paris in January 2016. It initially had a particularly strong focus on overseas markets, especially Europe, and even the website’s color scheme was reportedly designed for European audiences. A Japanese-language website and an e-commerce site were added in 2017.

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The Brand’s Commitments

Respect for Japan’s Fragrance Culture

At the heart of Kitchibe’s philosophy is a deep respect for kōdō, the culture of fragrant woods that has existed in Japan for at least a thousand years. Its official website states:

“Japan has a culture of burning and enjoying fragrant woods that dates back at least a thousand years. It began as an offering to purify the space before the Buddha in temples, and eventually became popular among the upper classes as soradakimono, incense burned to fill a room with fragrance.”
― From KITCHIBE’s official website​

The site further describes Japanese olfactory aesthetics as “taking the absence of color and scent as the baseline, and valuing quiet, pure fragrances.” The faintly toasted aroma of soba, sake’s dry and fruity scent, the fresh green fragrance of a mossy bamboo grove, and the harmony of old temple timbers and fragrant woods: the brand was founded in the belief that this sensitivity to delicate aromas can resonate across countries and cultures.​

This philosophy is also clearly expressed in an official press release. Its stated motto is to “create fragrances that resonate with the sensibilities of Japanese people, whose culture of scent is deep and complex precisely because it takes the absence of taste and odor as its starting point.”​

Designing Scent: Perfumers’ Expertise Cultivated in B2B Work

Kitchibe’s fragrances are created by Shiono Koryo’s perfumers. The official website names evaluator NAOKO and perfumers SHINYA, TOMOHIRO, and YASUSHI. They are a team of specialists with many years of experience developing B2B aroma products across a wide spectrum, from food flavors to fragrances.​

Perfumers draw on a palette of at least 3,000 natural and synthetic materials, combining them to create particular scents. Because fragrances made solely with natural ingredients tend to be unstable, fragrance manufacturers apply their expertise to combining them with synthetics to achieve consistent quality.

“We design while making our own suggestions that fit the product concept. The perfumer adjusts the fragrance to match the client’s vision.”
― Taichi Shiono​

Each Kitchibe fragrance aims to do more than simply smell pleasant: it seeks to recreate a Japanese landscape or cultural scene as a complete space. MATCHA, for example, reconstructs a quiet tearoom surrounded by a bamboo grove through the scent of tatami, steam rising from a kettle, and the aroma of tea leaves. Marie Claire Taiwan described this quality as follows: “The fragrance structure includes the tearoom’s tatami, hot steam, and the presence of bamboo, presenting the state of a complete space.”

Vessel Design: Ceramics That Look Like Stone

The most visually distinctive feature of Kitchibe’s room diffusers is their stone-like ceramics. Made with porous clay developed by Housen-gama, they absorb fragrance oil and slowly release its scent into the air.

Liquid clay is poured into a mold, and the firing process produces patterns resembling natural stone. Designed by Takumi Shimamura, diffusers such as MONOLIS, TUMI, KAWARA, and NANOPOT feature organic forms inspired by stones and rocks in nature.​

MONOLIS takes the shape of a mountain-like mass of stone. Its projecting reed plates, made of porous porcelain, express different aspects of nature through patterns such as the moon and tatami. TUMI resembles two stones of different sizes stacked together, evoking riverside stone stacks and offerings to mountain deities. KAWARA imitates a rounded river stone whose edges have been worn smooth by flowing water.​

Crinkle Candles: An Encounter with Seto White Porcelain

In addition to room diffusers, Kitchibe offers a line of scented candles named Crinkle. These products emerged from a different collaboration.​

The candles’ white porcelain vessels were designed by product designer Makoto Komatsu. Born in Tokyo, Komatsu is a leading ceramic designer who studied under Stig Lindberg at Gustavsberg in Sweden. His signature Crinkle series was selected for the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, and his work is also held by the ceramics museum in Faenza, Italy, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in Britain.

Kitchibe’s Crinkle candles combine thin-walled white porcelain vessels made in Seto, designed by this artist represented in MoMA’s collection, with candles made exclusively from domestically sourced plant-based ingredients. The wax has a soybean-wax base blended with palm and rapeseed oils, with no paraffin. It melts at a low temperature, allowing delicate scents to diffuse beautifully, and is said to produce less soot and fewer harmful substances. Each candle burns for up to approximately 40 hours, weighs 180 g, and is made entirely in Japan.​

Machida Rosoku manufactures the wax, while Ceramic Japan produces the porcelain. Seto ware’s 1,300-year tradition finds a new expression in these candle pots.​

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The Fragrance Lineup

Kitchibe’s fragrances are organized into two main collections.

Signature Collection

Six fragrances themed around Japan’s seasons, culture, and lifestyle. The collection centers on scents linked to particular landscapes or scenes, suitable for extended everyday use.

Fragrance	Theme	Top notes	Middle notes	Base notes
SAKURA	Oshima cherry blossoms and hanami	Ozone breeze	Oshima cherry blossom, rose, muguet	Warm wood
WASHI	A washi-paper workshop deep in the mountains	Leather, cardamom	Geranium, ylang-ylang, orris	Hinoki, cedarwood
MATCHA	A tearoom surrounded by bamboo groves	Leafy green	Tea leaves, hot water, bamboo, jasmine	Tatami
YUKI	Powder snow settling on a Zen temple’s rock garden	Crystal mint	Powder snow, cotton floral	Earthy wood, rocks
KITCHIBE	A traditional Japanese room with agarwood and Japanese and Chinese medicinal ingredients	Japanese herbs	Incense, smoke	Agarwood, Peru balsam
YUZU	The November yuzu harvest	Leafy green, bergamot, grapefruit	Yuzu, mandarin, geranium	Jasmine

(Details of each fragrance are from the official website.)​

The fragrance named KITCHIBE is the brand’s eponymous signature scent. It combines agarwood (in Japanese), a noble fragrant wood prized since ancient times, with essences of Japanese and Chinese medicinal ingredients to recreate the tranquil atmosphere of a traditional Japanese room.​

Sense Collection

Three fragrances themed around the Japanese sense of beauty itself. Whereas the Signature Collection depicts specific landscapes, these focus on more abstract aesthetics and spirituality.​

Fragrance	Theme	Top notes	Middle notes	Base notes
AKAFUJI	Katsushika Hokusai’s “Fine Wind, Clear Morning” (Red Fuji)	Bergamot, eucalyptus	Lavender, cardamom, ginger, jasmine	Incense, sandalwood, amber, vanilla
IKEBANA	The cosmology of kadō (ikebana, or flower arranging)	Grapefruit, raspberry, galbanum	Camellia blossom, ozone, violet	Musk, cedarwood
KARESANSUI	A Zen temple’s dry landscape garden	Yuzu, grapefruit, leafy green	Muguet, peony, ozone	Amber, olibanum, sandalwood, moss

(Details of each fragrance are from the official website.)​

AKAFUJI is inspired by the ukiyo-e print “Fine Wind, Clear Morning” in the collection of the Sumida Hokusai Museum. It expresses the grandeur of an early morning at the end of summer, when the rising sun, accompanied by a southerly breeze, turns Mount Fuji’s slopes red.

Product Formats

Kitchibe offers the fragrances above in the following formats.

• Fragrance oil (100 ml): A refill poured into a ceramic diffuser​
• Ceramic diffusers: MONOLIS, TUMI, KAWARA, NANOPOT, and others. Porous ceramics draw up the oil and diffuse its scent​
• Crinkle candles (180 g): Seto white porcelain vessels designed by Makoto Komatsu. Approximately 40 hours of burn time​
• MICA: A simple, palm-sized room diffuser. This starter kit provides several days of fragrance simply by inserting a stick into a small paper-and-glass bottle​
• MICA YOURS: An individually sold selection of five popular fragrances. Launched in August 2021​

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Incidentally…

• The origin of the brand name ― KITCHIBE comes from Kichibei in Shionoya Kichibei, the trade name of the company’s founder in 1808. It is intriguing that the name of a medicinal-ingredients wholesaler from at least 200 years ago has been revived as a contemporary fragrance brand.​
• The connection to Shionogi ― The major pharmaceutical company Shionogi is said to have originated as an offshoot of Shionoya Kichibei Shoten. In other words, Kitchibe and Shionogi share common roots.​
• Availability at MoMA Design Store ― Kitchibe products have also been sold at MoMA Design Store, the museum shop of New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Crinkle candles are also carried at MoMA Design Stores in Japan, in Omotesando, Kyoto, and Shinsaibashi.
• The scent of Paris Fashion Week ― Drawing on the fragrance-making expertise of its parent company, Shiono Koryo, Kitchibe has scented Paris collection venues for fashion brand ANREALAGE. For the AW2020–21 “BLOCK” collection in February 2020, it created an original fragrance based on designer Kunihiko Morinaga’s vision, installing it at the venue’s entrance and backstage.​
• The scent of YUKI in the skies above Roppongi ― At the beginning of 2023, Kitchibe’s YUKI fragrance was used to scent the elevator at Sky Deck, the observation facility at Roppongi Hills.​

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