Toothpick Specialty Nihonbashi Saruya’s Senryo Bako

Since the establishment in the early 18th century, Saruya in Nihonbashi, Tokyo has been in business for almost 300 years, now the only toothpick specialty store in Japan. Each hand-made toothpick is flexible and soft to the teeth. They are well-liked to go with high-end Japanese sweets and as a gift.

The toothpicks are made from spice bush in the laurel family. Its oil with the clean scent is used for fragrance and soap. Saruya uses the young spice bush grown to about 1m-tall.

Senryo Bako (meaning a box of thousand gold coins) is a gift box made of paulownia tree filled with these spicebush toothpicks. As a token of good luck, it is often given on the New Year’s Day or as a memento. ”Kin Senryo (a thousand gold coins)” is hand-drawn in ink on the box. If you give it as a gift, people will be impressed with your sophisticated sense. Senryo Bako received Japan Pack’s silver award which is given to an excellent packaging design. The box comes in different sizes depending on the number of toothpicks, and some boxes have very Japanese-like illustrations of “All seats sold out” and a Kabuki actor’s face.