Belated Happy New Year to you! I hope you had a peaceful and wonderful Christmas and New Year.

Sadly, we have had a tragic earthquake and air plane accident in Japan at New Year. I visited Kanazawa (near to the source of the earthquake) in November, and I have many friends and suppliers there. Fortunately, they’ve been able to carry on living in their homes without a great deal of damage, but the area and the people they know there have suffered enormously. 

I feel very deeply about it, so to support them we are going to try and promote their products in the UK more intensively. It is an area that is famous for producing Natsume (ceremonial matcha tea caddies). In fact more than 90% of natsume come from that area. We have now added a natsume onto our website, and we have a big selection of them in the tea studio in Ladbroke Grove. Please do let us know if you would like to come and see them. They do look beautiful! We haven’t done our official photo shoot yet, but we will happily send you some pictures. And of course you are welcome to visit our studio to see them in person too. Just send us an email, or DM us on Instagram, to arrange a time.