Aguinomi(sake cup), its base engraved with a pattern of cherry blossoms, ten flat cuts on its sides. Filled with sake, the glass blooms with cherry blossoms as the pattern reflects up the sides, drawing you into a beautiful self-contained world of liquid light, rippled with the light blue of the cup’s base and vibrantkin’akapink of the cherry blossom motif.

The Sakura Saku, or “blooming cherry blossom,”guinomiis one of many popular items from glass specialty store Shiina Kiriko (GLASS-LAB), established in 2014 by Shiina Takayuki. The family business, Shiina Glass, was founded by his grandfather in Kiyosumi Shirakawa in 1950 as a cut-glass processing factory. His father, second-generation Shiina Yasuo, is a master ofhirakiri,or flat faceting, one of traditional techniques of Edo Kiriko. This method of creating flat facets in glass is more technically challenging than simply cutting lines in glass; currently, there are only about ten artisans practiced in the technique. Additionally, Takayuki’s brother, Shiina Yasuyuki, is a specialist in sandblasting. By spraying abrasive materials onto the glass surface, he is able to engrave intricate frosted-glass patterns such as cherry blossom motifs, and with extraordinary skill and dexterity draw ultra-fine lines as thin as 0.09 mm.

A workshop that combines these two techniques is extremely rare, and Shiina Kiriko (GLASS-LAB) was started with the desire to couple them to create unique Edo Kiriko. Suna Kiriko, which employs sandblasted engravings on the base and beautiful, reflectivehirakirifaceting on the sides, was the innovative product of their joint efforts. When filled with liquid, the delicate sandblasted patterns spread through the glass and its contents in a kaleidoscope of light and color. Besides cherry blossoms, Shiina Kiriko (GLASS-LAB) also offerguinomiand old-fashioned glasses with motifs reflecting the changing seasons, such as fireworks, autumn leaves, and snowflakes. Glasses featuring motifs from famousukiyo-eprints, such asRed FujiandThe Great Wavefrom Hokusai’sThirty-six Views of Mount Fujiseries, have also found widespread popularity overseas.

Edo Kiriko’s unique charms are manifold, however, and the technique of coating colored glass over clear glass, calledirokise,is yet another. At Shiina Kiriko (GLASS-LAB), multi-layered colored glass combinations such as light blue andkin’aka,or fluorescent yellow andkin’akaare used to maximize the beauty of the sandblasted motifs. Driven always to create objects that “move people’s hearts,” Shiina Kiriko (GLASS-LAB)’s pursuit of ever-finer artisanship is showing no sign of slowing.