From hillside clump to tea shelf
Michael Zhan first encountered these tubes in a small workshop outside Jinggu, Yunnan, where a third-generation bamboo craftsman, Old Li, was splitting fresh poles for local tea farmers. Li’s family had supplied the same six-village pu-erh collective for decades; the tubes were never commercial — just seasonal winter work, traded for tea. Michael spent three afternoons watching Li select thick-walled moso bamboo at exactly the right stage of ripeness, split each cane into sixteen equal staves with a single axe swing, then finish the edges with a drawknife. The piercing pattern — three staggered rows — emerged from Li’s grandmother’s belief that the bamboo should ‘breathe like a bird’s ribcage’. Every tube was sun-cured for forty days, turned daily, until the colour settled into the honey-brown we see. When Michael asked if he could buy a few dozen, Li laughed and offered to teach him the splitting instead. After a week, Michael managed one acceptable tube, and Li agreed to produce a seasonal batch for Teamotea — provided the team bring their own tea to share. The set now ships from Li’s village, bundled with rice-straw twine and wrapped in recycled jute. Each tube carries a tiny stamp of the workshop’s name in carved bamboo seal form, a mark of quiet pride.