Bamboo workshops of Yongde
In April 2024, while sourcing spring tea lots in Yongde County, Yunnan, Michael Zhan stumbled upon a small bamboo workshop run by an elderly craftsman known as Lao Yu. Between stacks of bamboo steamer baskets and tea trays, a prototype sand timer caught Michael’s eye — fashioned from offcuts of mao zhu, the dense hill bamboo used for local tea packing. The four sand columns were etched by hand, and the glass ampoule was salvaged from old laboratory supplies. Michael recognized the potential immediately: this would be the silent companion every gongfu practitioner craves.
Over three subsequent visits, Michael worked with Lao Yu to refine the design. They tested dozens of sand types — river sand, desert sand, crushed mineral grains — before settling on a single-sourced quartz sand from Chaozhou, celebrated for its uniform grain size and almost frictionless flow. The bamboo frame was slimmed down, the base weighted just enough to prevent tipping, and the intervals recalibrated to match the pacing of oolong and pu-erh infusions: 15, 30, 45, and 60 seconds.
Each Silent bamboo session timer is still assembled by hand in Lao Yu’s workshop, the bamboo polished with a food-safe wax, the sand sealed inside a slender borosilicate tube. The result is a tool that adds nothing to your tea space except stillness. No batteries, no ticking – just the descent of sand as a visual mantra.