Through terroir, we weave the world.

I first encountered the word terroir not in a book about wine, but in a tea field in Makinohara, Shizuoka. Born the eldest son of a tea-farming household, I learned with my body, growing up, that the same cultivar could yield an entirely different flavor depending on the year's climate and soil, the pickers' hands, and the spirit of the one who steeped it.

Out in the wider world, I began my career as an IT engineer, then moved through renewable energy, smart-city initiatives, regional power retail, the circular economy and the rebranding of traditional industries. These look unrelated on the surface, yet a single question has run beneath all of them —

“How can the value that can only be born in this land, by these people, in this time — be translated to the world?”

To answer that question in the form of an enterprise, I founded Sun&R.Lab in Niigata in November 2023. I chose Niigata because here, too, there was a clear other terroir — one woven of land, people and culture. And because I was certain that the tea terroir of my native Shizuoka, and the regional resources of Niigata, could be approached on the same continuous line of thought.

Whatever the sector, what we hold dear is one thing — the power of connections. Between land and world, producer and recipient, tradition and renewal, person and person. Only by building bridges between them, we believe, does value begin to circulate, and abundance and well-being come to be passed along.

NEIGE & THÉ ↗, our Maison brand, is an attempt to hold the voice of the land and its makers within a single drop, in the form of a non-alcoholic drink. The non-alcoholic-pairing consultancy walks alongside Michelin-starred restaurants and hospitality venues to deliver a new kind of experience. And BizDev runs in parallel with every phase of an enterprise, from energy and logistics to smart cities and overseas expansion.

The sectors differ; the root is the same. Translating regional terroir for the world. Weaving connections, generating circulation. That, in essence, is the work of Sun&R.Lab.