Noritake

Noritake & Co. Limited – is a tableware and technology company headquartered in Nagoya, Japan.

‘Noritake’ was established by the Morimura brothers as a trading company in 1876. They established the company in New York City to import chinaware and other gift items.

In 1904 they decided to start manufacturing porcelain aimed at the European market and set up a factory in Nogoya, but it took until 1914 before they produced porcelain dinnerware that was suitable to be exported.

Their earliest pieces were hand painted often with liberal use of gold. They produced their first Western style dinner service called ‘Sedan’ to compete with Western porcelain producers in 1914. Most of their early wares carried the ‘Nippon’ back stamps to validate the country of origin for Western export. Collectors now agree that the best examples of hand painted porcelain during the ‘Nippon Era’ (1891-1921) come from the Noritake factory.

In 1923, looking to streamline their paperwork the company (now Nippon Toki ) entered into a sole agency agreement with what became IBM to import their machines into Japan, and the Nippon Pottery became IBM’s first Japanese customer in 1925.