Nigiro

East meets West

The team that brought superior coffee to Cape Town in the form of Origin, briefed Kite to capture the essence of tea for their new venture. The brand needed to reflect an African spirit as well as the Eastern heritage of tea.

Nigiro has gone on to win contracts to supply tea to South Africa’s most prestigious hotels, including One&Only, the Mount Nelson and the Hyatt.

What we did: Brand narrative, Brand identity, Brand architecture, Name generation, Package design, Print design, Image creation.

What’s in a name
Coffee and Tea are yin and yang. Origin spelled backwards is ‘Nigiro’. Nigiro expresses the yang of Origin and has the happy outcome of sounding Eastern.

Make your marque
The marque is a twist on an Eastern-style stamp, with the name separated into three distinct characters that are read vertically.

High mountain tea
The finest tea is grown high up on the mountains, 2 300 meters above sea level. This method slows down the growth rate and intensifies the resulting flavour. The contour lines in the brand honour this landscape and lend themselves to an interesting graphic.

Individualism
African clay pots were handmade to house over a hundred flavours of loose-leaf teas. Each pot is individual with some showing off their beaded necklaces. The pots rest on a contour path and are beautifully lit.

Finding your tea
Each tea has its own colour, making it easier to pick it off the shelf.

Contour lines with a difference
Nigiro also sells beautiful hand-blown teapots. You can make a single cup, enough for a whole crowd, or anything in between. The teas have beautiful colouring and include a tea that blossoms and unfurls in the water. To view this splendor all teapots and cups are made of clear glass. The product on each box is graphically displayed on the contour lines that feature throughout the brand.