Japan's beneficial onsen waters have been ground to powder. "We could clone our hot springs anywhere."

A Japanese company has succeeded in turning the water from the famous "onsen," Japan's healing hot springs, into powder to facilitate their export, a long-thought-impossible option. Tokyo-based Le Furo has developed a technology known as "craft onsen," which extracts and filters the elements that make up the hot springs, concentrating them to the utmost in powder form. Now, it declares itself ready to export its onsen to every corner of the world, starting with the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf. This news seems at odds with recent reports that the celebrated hot springs are being brought to their knees by overtourism.

The company now intends to use this patented technology to export Japanese hot springs, aiming to open several facilities in the Gulf region by 2026, where "water is considered a more precious resource than oil," explains its CEO, Naoki Mita. Until now, transporting hot springs abroad seemed impossible for logistical reasons, due to the volume of water required and their sensitivity to germs. "Just like when extracting espresso, we grind the mineral resources into fine, sand-like particles," the same manager explained to Agence France Presse.

The entrepreneur points out that many commercially available "onsen powders" are synthetic and reproduce the color and relaxing smell of these springs without necessarily containing the essential natural elements.

Only when solid metals such as iron, magnesium, and zinc are dissolved in the water does it become possible to chemically reproduce the therapeutic effects of an onsen.

With an estimated 28,000 establishments by 2021, according to the Ministry of Environment, onsen are a major industry in Japan, popular with locals and tourists.