Noritake Co., Limited (ノリタケ株式会社) is a Japanese porcelain, fine ceramics, and sharpening stone manufacturer headquartered in Nagoya, Japan.
History
In 1876, Ichizaemon Morimura VI and his brother Toyo founded Morimura Gumi with the intent of establishing overseas trading by a Japanese company. By 1878, Toyo had established a business in New York selling Japanese antiques and other goods, including pottery. The company was renamed Morimura Brothers in 1881. By the 1890s, the company had shifted from retail to wholesale operations and started working on design improvements for the pottery and porcelain ware, which had become one third of its business. By 1899, all of the pottery and porcelain decorating factories in Tokyo and Kyoto had been consolidated in Nagoya, and the company started research on creating European style hard white porcelain in Japan.[3][4][5]
In 1904, key members of this trading company created the Nippon Toki Kaisha, Ltd. ("the Company that makes Japan's Finest China") in Japan.[5]