Seasonal Letter 05. Vivid Purple at the River Bank

26/08/2025

July, the season of the blue sky and beautiful sunshine.
In the rush green, beautiful purple
vividly decorates the river banks of Flandars.

From ancient times, Japanese people have been enjoying the seasonal beauty and following the rythm of nature through a cup of tea. This little series of Toridori's seasonal letter was born to bring — a little spoonful of — seasonal beauty and nature's rythm into our life.

In July, summer is at its height in Belgium. The plants are vigorously growing, and animals and insects are ever more active, as if they are celebrating this joyful season with their whole body. For us, human, too, this is a perfect season to become active; be it hiking, running, canoeing, swimming, ...

In this season, you can find lots of vivid-colored flowers in Flemish nature. For our fifth letter, I picked one of these flowers: purple loosestrife (Grote kattenstaart in Dutch).

As you may have noticed, this is one of the most commonly found flowers at the Belgian river banks and wetlands. The vivid purple color in the rush green creates a very beautiful landscape of Belgian summer water.

What is your favorite view in Belgian summer?

Erina

TORIDORI SEASONAL LETTER 05.

Vivid purple at the river bank

川べりを彩る赤紫

2025 July 10 - August 26

Hi, friends! How are you doing?

To add a spoonful of seasonality in your tea cup, I am writing a small seasonal letter every month.

The flower of this month is purple loosestrife (Grote kattenstaart in Dutch), the vivid purple-red flowers commonly found at the river banks and wetlands in Flanders.

In the July of 2017, I visited the nature reserve of Vorsdonkbos-Turfputten. My hometown in Japan doesn't really have wetlands. It was my first time at the summer Flemish wetland, and the contrasts of green grasses and vivid purple-red flowers were so stanning beautiful.

Since then, every time I find this flower, it brings me back to that special moment at the beautiful wetland.