Huge Shop Update and House-cleaning

It’s all or nothing with me eh? I’m seeing the light! The shop is starting to flourish again with all the 2021 teas coming into stock. I have received my shipments from India and China, though I am still waiting on the Japanese teas — those will be arriving around the end of May. The Maojian green teas from China are GREAT (both of them) — they are huge suggestions from me to you.

Speaking of tea (since the rest of the article is about other stuff) you can still find some of my stuff at La Table Haut Pastry in Airdrie. I’ll hopefully get a shelf of retail products into into Kawa Espresso Bar, though that’s all still up in the air. I have my first tea event this year coming up next weekend. An outdoor COVID-compliant gathering. That should be great fun if the weather permits; I’ll be doing a tea event with Jam’s in Airdrie one of these days too when restaurants open up for dine-in again.

Shipping rates. Bleh. Back when I started all of this it would only cost $35 to express ship a kilogram of tea to Canada. That number is creeping up on $75 this year! Japan post is set to double their rates too.

I have added a very special matcha bowl to the shop and commissioned another 15 Bizen-yaki cups from Japan to be made! 10 of which are in similar styles as before, the ‘hidasuki’ and ‘kuro’ ones that you can still see examples of in the shop. There will be 5 of something new though! Blue Bizen!

Kobashi-san’s Blue Bizen is quite distinctive because of the ‘neriage’ effect present in his finished pieces. He doesn’t usually make cups this size in blue (perhaps because with increased size, neriage is more difficult?), so I think we’re both excited to see how they’ll turn out. They will be fired about 2 months from now (around the end of June) and they will be completely unique to this shop.

I’ve added some incredible textiles to the shop: tea mats (essentially table runners). One is light green linen with beautiful golden floral brocade, the other black and gold Xiangyun silk. Both absolute treasures. Worth checking out!

A lot of things are coming together. Guess I’ll wrap this up, I have more inventory to add to the website — writing this was a nice escape from the monotony. Thanks for reading! _{buy tea pls..}