The minute I saw that Lupicia and Studio Ghibli were doing a collaboration, I knew that I wanted their teas. The only problem was that I moved back to Singapore last year, which means that I don’t have easy access to the どんぐり共和国 (donguri kyowakoku) shops anymore.

Thankfully, I had a tea lover friend who happened to be going to Japan, and she managed to get one of each teas for me (along with Kiki watch). So when we had our Dayre Tea Party, we knew that we were going to be trying these teas first.

My Neighbour Totoro Tea・となりのトトロ 大トトロとメイ

This was the header image but it got a bit cut off so here it is again!

I love that the sides of the tins have different small totoros all around it! And at one side, there’s this:

To be very honest, we were a bit apprehensive to try this tea. When my friend smelled it at the shop, she said that it had a “chao dar” (burnt) smell. But in this case, the packaging won and we got a tin each.

It comes sealed in a packet and it says that they used Totoro’s home as an environment and blended different types of beans, momiji, and houjicha together. Thankfully, the tea smelled a lot like kinako when we opened the packet, instead of burnt tea.

The tea tastes like kinako and houjicha mixed together, with a hint of sweetness at the end. It’s surprisingly nice, and greatly exceeded our expectations.

Totoro Tea’s Product Page 

Kiki’s Delivery Service Tea・魔女の宅急便 キキの横顔

Compared to the Totoro tea, the Kiki tea was an easy buy. My friend was texting me from the store and she was incredibly excited for this because it had a fantastic fruity smell.

Also, I get you, Kiki. I get you.

I love the flower design at the side of the tin! Too bad Jiji isn’t anywhere here.

The Kiki tea is described as a black tea flavoured with the sweet and sour smell of strawberries that’s supposed to convey the hope and heartrending pain of leaving home and starting a new life yourself.

This tea tastes like berries and is sweet without being overly so. It smells a bit fruity, a bit like candy, so while I’m not really getting ‘sadness’ from the tea, I’m getting the happy hopeful part. Perhaps I need to drink this tea a few more times to see if I can go beyond the sweetness and see if there are any other taste notes in it. But it really is a very easy tea to drink and we all loved this.

Kiki’s Delivery Service Product Page