Kamikatsu, Tokushima

The road into Kamikatsu follows the Katsuura River through a narrowing valley, the mountains closing in until the town feels less like a destination than a crease in the landscape. Almost everything here grows on a slope — the shiitake logs, the yuzu trees, the terraced rice fields at Kashihara that have been worked for generations and now draw visitors to see them lit at dusk.

What circulates through this place is a particular logic of use. The leaves and citrus garnishes sold under the Irodori label — those small sprigs of momiji or kinome that appear on kaiseki plates across Japan — are harvested by local farmers and sorted by hand. At RISE&WIN Brewing Co., the beer brewed here comes with a zero-waste philosophy built into the building itself, which operates as a general store running on refill and bulk principles. Alawa Bancha, the post-fermented tea made in this region, is processed through a method specific to Awa, and its smoky, mellow character is not something you encounter easily elsewhere.

Tsukigaya Onsen sits beside the river — a single lodging, a cold spring, a campsite nearby. The pace there is unhurried in the way that places with few alternatives tend to be. Kamikatsu's population is sparse, the roads are mountain roads, and the infrastructure is built around the idea that less, handled carefully, is enough.