From a Kunming back-alley workshop to your tea space
Sandry Law found the prototype for this divider on an unseasonably hot afternoon in a narrow lane off Kunming’s Hongshan East Road. He was deep in a procurement run for tea trays, chasing a lead on old-growth camphorwood, when the scent of fresh walnut pulled him through a half-open roller door. Inside, a retired carpenter named Lao Wei was planing slats of North American black walnut — a wood he’d been hoarding since a cancelled hotel order. The slats were destined for bed-heads, but Sandry saw something else: a low screen, just 60 centimeters tall, that could tether a floor-seating tea area without boxing it in. They talked over jasmine tea for two hours. Lao Wei sketched three designs on the back of a sandpaper packet. By dusk, the first divider was standing in the doorway, striping the concrete with late sun. We now work with Lao Wei’s small team in Zhejiang, where the walnut — FSC-certified, kiln-dried — is jointed with double tenons and finished with a hardwax oil that brings out the subtle purple-brown cast without turning plastic-shiny. Each divider is numbered and signed on the bottom rail with Lao Wei’s tiny wood-burned stamp. Sandry’s team inspects every unit before it ships, checking joinery, grain flow, and the way light moves across the surface. The result is a piece that feels inevitable: a boundary you can see through, a pause between the tea room and the rest of the apartment.