Drinking Heals turns the ritual of tea into a design experiment with packaging that looks more like a cigarette pack than a box of tea. Each SKU comes in a crisp white pack with minimal graphics, tiny illustrations, and punchy typography. The tagline “Drinking Heals” is printed boldly, like a playful health warning flipped on its head.

The layouts are precise, leaving plenty of negative space that gives the packs an almost clinical charm. The whole concept is based on the Japanese practice of “IPPUKU,” which is a small ritual of pausing to balance the mind and body.

Haruki Higashi, designer at LOWORKS Inc., shares more about the design and concept below.