For the last three months, I have been inexplicably drawn to tea shops with yellow color schemes. Is there a magical connection? Maybe only in a subliminal desire for the very best.
In Chinese culture, yellow was reserved for royalty, and it is perhaps no accident that L'Epicier, a gourmet tea salon/boutique, is decorated in the same hue. Nestled on a quiet side street minutes from JR Sendagaya Station, the salon serves the finest tea in inviting surroundings: pale yellow walls, pastel yellow and green tablecloths, and golden yellow canopies floating overhead.
President Masaki Mizuguchi, who graduated from a French university, originally planned to open a gourmet goods shop, as the salon's name (which means "The Grocer" in French) suggests. But since he already had a working knowledge of tea, he decided that it would be a better item to build a business around -- and a wise decision it turned out to be. Since the first L'Epicier opened its doors in 1996, Mizuguchi has ridden the crest of Japan's "tea boom" and opened a further 50 L'Epicier tea boutiques (four with tea salons).
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