Michelle Liu Carriger, PhD has been studying the Urasenke tradition of chado (“tea ceremony”) since 1999, in various locations including Los Angeles, Colorado, Kansas, Boston, London, and in Kyoto during a yearlong Midorikai fellowship at the Urasenke Gakuen Professional College of Chado. She holds a second degree Urasenke teaching license and chamei (tea name) “Somi.”

Additionally, she researches and writes academically on tea practice and theory and spent two years in rural Ehime prefecture, Japan, studying in the Omotesenke lineage.

Kaoru started to practice Chanoyu at the age of 10 and has been practicing in various tea schools including Urasenke, Omotesenke, and Edosenke. In 2014, before graduating from Sophia University, she founded Nippon Collection. Since then, she has been engaging with organizing exhibitions, workshops, product development, and interviews in the field of traditional arts and crafts, in order to explore spirituality and lifestyles that are unique to Japan.

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She has worked in a cultural foundation, an apparel company, and a global consulting firm. In 2020, she graduated from Goldsmiths, University of London with a degree of Msc in Marketing and Technology. From 2021, she is pursuing a second master's degree in East Asian Studies at UCLA.