Before you buy
What is in the set?
Five pieces: a 100-prong chasen made in Takayama, Nara, an ink-black Mino-yaki bowl with a pour spout, a white-bamboo scoop, a black tin sifter, and a maki-e style caddy.
Do I need to know the tea ceremony to use it?
No. Sift, pour water at 70–80 °C, whisk for fifteen seconds, drink — about three minutes in total. The formal ceremony is a lifetime's study and is not the price of admission to a quiet bowl of tea. More on that here.
Does it include matcha?
No. Matcha is the one part that should be bought fresh and small — it holds four to eight weeks after opening — and from a producer who names the region and the harvest. How to choose it.
Is it cheaper than buying the pieces separately?
Yes, a little. And it removes four decisions, which is the part most people actually want. The pieces are the same ones we sell individually — nothing in the box exists only to fill it.
What if something arrives broken?
Write within 7 days of delivery with three photographs: the broken piece, the inside of the box and the outside with the label. We send a replacement or a refund at no cost, and there is nothing to post back unless we ask. Ceramics are double-boxed and cushioned by hand before they leave Tokyo, but the post is the post.
Will I have to replace any of it?
The whisk, in a few months of daily use. Everything else here should outlast it by years — the bowl and the sifter effectively forever, the scoop and the caddy for as long as you keep them dry. A chasen is a consumable by design: it is a hundred fine bamboo tines, and those tines are meant to wear. When they start breaking rather than bending, you replace that one piece and keep the rest. How to tell when it is time.
Is US import duty included?
Yes. For orders to the United States, import duty is included in the price and paid by us before the parcel leaves Tokyo, so nothing is asked for at the door. Outside the United States, duty may be collected on delivery. Details are on shipping and duties.
How long does it take to arrive in the US?
It is dispatched from Tokyo within 5 business days. Standard airmail usually takes 1–2 weeks and Express (EMS) usually 3–6 days. Customs can occasionally add time.
Is this a good gift?
It is the one we would send. Five pieces, nothing missing, and the person opening it can make a bowl of tea the same afternoon without buying anything else — which is the failure mode of most tea gifts. Hand wrapping and a handwritten card can be added in the cart. Leaving the prices out of the parcel costs nothing, with or without wrapping.
Tomari (とまり) is an old word for a mooring — the place a boat ties up for the night. A bowl of tea is meant to be the same: a few minutes to put the day down. You do not need to know the rules to begin.
Who chose this
I choose everything here by hand, in Japan. I practice tea rather than simply selling the tools for it — I am not a tea master and I do not claim to be. I am a practitioner, which mostly means I have ruined enough bad whisks to know what a good one feels like in the first second of holding it.
Nothing is drop-shipped and nothing passes through a third warehouse. I pack each order in Tokyo and post it from Japan, ceramics double-boxed by hand. If something arrives broken, write within 7 days with photographs of the piece and the box, and I send a replacement or a refund; there is nothing to post back unless I ask. Who writes and chooses all this, and the longer version of why this shop exists.