From Yunnan’s old forests to your chá-shì
Sandry Law first visited the cedar-rich slopes of western Yunnan in autumn 2023, searching for a material as alive as the teas it would house. The mountain cedar there — slow-grown, resin-heavy — had long been used by local tea families for incense-bead boxes and trousseau chests. Sandry worked with a family-run mill outside Kunming that air-dries each plank for two years, rejecting any board with knots within the critical joinery zone.
Back in the Teamotea procurement hub, she sketched a cabinet for drier climates. Traditional open shelves, she knew, let too much moisture escape. The design that emerged — a closed cabinet with magnetic-close doors and a concealed slot for a hygrometer card — came after months of prototype testing in Kunming’s winter, when indoor humidity can crash below 30%.
Today, each cabinet is cut, assembled, and tested in the same Kunming workshop, where Sandry inspects the cedar grain pattern and the softness of the magnetic catch before it ships to you. A piece of Yunnan’s high country, engineered for your collection.