Guruguru Shakashaka — '600 Varieties of Salt'

But wait: there's more!

"Customers can make and buy their own custom blends."

From Spoon and Tamago:

This summer, a unique store opened in Tokyo.

Located just a few steps away from Tokyo Sky Tree is "Guruguru Shakashaka," a salt specialty store that lets you explore 600 varieties of salt and then blend your own.

Equally unique is the name, which is based on the Japanese onomatopoeia for mixing and shaking.

You can browse the store on your own but the real deliciousness occurs at the counter where, for 2970 yen, staff will guide you through 5 different varieties of salt defined by sweet, umami, sour, salty and umami.

The taste testing is accompanied by beautiful blue kanten (agar jelly), which helps accentuate the flavors, and black bean tea, which helps cleanse the palate.

Finally, visitors will blend their own salt based on preferences from the taste test and take home 100g of salt.

Repeat visitors can of course purchase their own blend for 1500 yen/200g.

The fixtures also have a color scheme inspired by salt, where the blue parts are made from dyed linden plywood," explained Torafu Architects, who designed the interior.

"The neon sign 'SHIO (Salt)' installed behind the counter

corresponds to the neon sign 'Ume' of the UMEBOSHI shop across the street," added the architect.

Indeed, if you do visit, note that right across the corridor is an umeboshi specialty shop

operated by the same company.

The neon lights are an indication of their sisterhood.

If you decided to visit both, be sure to watch your sodium intake!

Guruguru Shakashaka is located on the 4th floor of the Tokyo Solamachi shopping mall.

[via Kottke]