Kyono TANA Satellite Gallery: "Me no Kagayaki" Certified Companies

You come down to Miyako Messe's basement for Kyoto's 74 traditional crafts, and in the EAST SQUARE window gallery you find makeup brushes and craft gin. Both makers hold the city research institute's 2025 "Me no Kagayaki" (shining eyes) certification, given to firms that turned the institute's technical help into a product.

Kato Tech builds machines that put numbers on how things feel to the touch. With the institute it developed a tester for a cosmetic brush's springiness and smoothness, and a Japanese Industrial Standard for measuring brushes is now being drafted. Mori no Kyoto Distillery works out of a Fukuchiyama sake brewery founded in 1860. Institute staff spent a year culturing samples from the old brewery and its equipment until they isolated its own lactic acid bacterium, which now ferments the gin's botanical extract. They named it K-1860: K for Kyoto, 1860 for the brewery.

This is the ninth round of the Kyono TANA display, which changes about every three months. This one runs until 30 November.