Kokoro Packages
Lillian and Aki set up Kokoro with the idea of making artisan Japanese ingredients available, overseas. They have set about discovering the finest, select suppliers from the Japanese provinces and sharing their stories. The producst can be shipped to your home as 'care packages’ direct from Japan. I tried my first, which was the ‘Wa package’ recently and products such as their Yuzu Miso or Stork Rice Vinager are now firm favourites of mine. In fact, I had the rice vinegar as a dipping sauce for gyoza last night, it’s perfect even served neat!
Yuzu picking in Tokushima, a region famous for this citrus fruit, used in Yuzurikko miso.
The founders of Kokoro (which translates into “heart” in Japanese, but also can mean the “spirit”, “soul” and “emotion”) share a comittment to community and sustainability and I love reading about the characters involved in each ingredient. It makes me a little nostalgic, for the characters I know and love to visit, when I head home to Japan.
All of the Kokoro products are made from natural ingredients, many using traditional methods that have been passed down through generations.
You can order a collection at any time (which has ngredients hand-picked around a central theme), or a subscription. I love the fact that subscriptions can be seasonal, as seasonality is a central theme for all Japanese cookery.