Ito En began with humble roots in 1966 when the company’s founder, Shigemitsu Inazawa, decided to purchase a tea store in Tokyo. The store sold exclusively Japanese tea from the region of Ureshino. Inazawa focused on quality tea and insisted that each leaf was treated with respect. Over the next decade, the business expanded and grew until the 1970s when Ito En began manufacturing and distributing its own teas and tea-based products. By the 1980s, Ito En was quickly becoming one of the biggest tea manufacturers in Japan and introduced its first canned tea in 1982 followed by bottled tea in 1986.
