THIS YEAR’S "NEW TEA” SHINCHA EXHIBITION
wooden tea caddies, a selection of 111 ceramics tea cups

Shincha, the new season green tea, has arrived. Together with the freshly plucked tea we sell wooden tea caddies and selected ceramic teacups.

Ever since we moved our gallery to Kyoto and opened Toka, our tearoom, we have been looking for good wooden tea caddies. Two years ago we met woodturner Tatsuya Aida. Samples started to move back and forth, and we exchanged ideas and discussed many details. The curve of the body, the shape of the cap, the texture and treatment of the surface… The results are – at least in our eyes – very fine tea caddies that show the character of the wood at its best, giving our hands a most comfortable feeling.

Aida-san has made these original tea caddies in four different sizes. And he used different kinds of wood for us: cherry, chestnut, maple, walnut, plum, rosewood, black persimmon, pine, elm, quince, horse chestnut, oak, Japanese raisin tree, Amur cork tree, magnolia, Japanese beech…

會田竜也｜TATSUYA AIDA
was born in Yamagata in 1976. He says: “In my early childhood I was playing around a lot in the workshop of my uncle, who was a carpenter. I was surrounded by wonderful woods, but never thought about becoming a woodworker myself. After I finished my studies in art education and crafts in Tokyo and Kyoto, I worked for a while for a design company in Tokyo. Being busy mainly with desk work, I felt a strong impetus to make things from wood with my own hands. So I started learning again as an apprentice in a furniture factory in Okayama. In 2005 I set up my own workshop in Fukushima. After the 2011 earthquake all our family moved to Hyogo prefecture. These days I turn mainly vessels and tea caddies. The reason why I got into tea caddies? One day my parents asked me: ‘It would be nice to have a wooden tea caddy at home. Can you make one for us?’ Since then tea caddies have become one of my specialities.”

Together with the tea and the tea caddies we present a selection of 111 teacups in different ceramic styles and from different potters. Please find the one you like most.