About us
The Tatami Center began not with a business plan, but with a question: why does stepping into a Japanese room feel different from any other space in the world?
The answer, it turned out, is in the floor. Tatami — made from woven igusa grass, hand-stitched over days, releasing a scent that decades of Japanese poetry have compared to the countryside after rain — is not merely a material. It is a philosophy of how a space should feel.
That question led San Ammogh to San Urayama, a tatami master from Japan. What followed was a partnership to bring this craft — for the first time, authentically and fully — to India.
Indian metro cities have a loneliness problem. Not from lack of people — metro cities are full of people — but from a lack of presence. We are perpetually elsewhere. At dinner, we check our phones. During today, we plan tomorrow.
Japanese culture has a word, ma (間), that describes the productive power of negative space — of silence, of pause, of emptiness that invites. Japanese interior design is the physical expression of this idea: that a well-made space can return a person to themselves.
The Tatami Center exists to bring that return to India. Not as a decoration, but as a practice.
Co-founder · India
Ammogh leads the India side of operations — client relationships, project management, events, and business development. He is the bridge between Japanese craft and Indian contexts.
Co-founder · Japan
Masahito Urayama is the Japanese co-founder of The Tatami Center. He brings deep knowledge of tatami tradition, materials sourcing, and Japanese cultural practice to every project. He is the link between Japan's craft world and the Indian market.
Igusa grass takes six months to grow in the Kumamoto region of Japan. It is hand-sorted and graded by colour and density — only the finest strands make it into our tatami.
The igusa is woven diagonally on a loom into the omote — the tatami surface. Each mat contains approximately 7,000 strands. The weave angle determines durability and texture.
Nishiwaki Kazuhiro hand-stitches the omote onto the tatami base (doko). This is the critical step that most commercial tatami skips — machine-stitching produces a fundamentally different product.
Each mat is custom-sized for the space. One mat takes a full day of skilled work. The finished tatami is firm, fragrant, and designed to last for decades.
Authentic Japanese tatami is genuinely hard to bring to India. Import regulations, phytosanitary requirements for natural plant material, and the complexity of working with artisans across two countries make it a barrier most have not crossed.
We have crossed it. Our supply chain is fully compliant, our materials are traceable to source, and every installation comes with documentation. This is not a side benefit — it is the foundation of our offer.
Work with us