A Smart Pasta Spice Organizer made from Kiri Wood

The spice organizer is a smart and functional kitchen container.  In it, you can store long and short pasta, noodles, tea, beans, salt, spice etc.  It helps to tidy up the kitchen space and looks cool.

It is made from Kiri Wood.  Kiri has been used as a box or chest to store kimonos which used to be treated as family treasures till recently.  This is because Kiri wood is light and controls humidity well; thus it protect the object inside from moisture.  Dry foods inside are kept well and preserved nicely in the kitchen.  Also, Kiri provides better protection than other woods to fire damage.

There is an interesting story about how Kiri supported daily life in ancient times.  During the Edo era (15th - 19th) chests was made from Kiri wood.   Have you seen the Japanese Tansu (chest) with metal handles?  They are not just decoration.  The city of Edo (current Tokyo) had caught in fire very often.  Because Japanese houses were made of wood and built very closely each other, houses were easily burned down.  People ran away from the fire and while that, they took out the Kiri chest and carried them in the fire.  The metal handles are for this emergency.  Because Kiri wood itself is very light and many of the drawers could be separated, father took the first drawer and mother carried the second drawer and the family ran away from the fire carrying their treasure.