From a Kunming workshop to your pitcher
When we began testing strainers for the shop, most options failed quickly — mesh that warped, handles that broke, or pours that spilled tea onto the table. Sandry Law, our Head of Procurement in China, took the search to the hardware districts of Kunming. She found a small metalwork studio run by two brothers who had been making surgical-grade filters for laboratory use. Intrigued by the possibility, Sandry spent three days refining the design with them. The goal: a strainer that could balance on any standard cha hai mouth without tilting, with a mesh fine enough to catch even broken leaf but open enough to preserve pour speed. After six prototypes, they settled on a double-layer stainless mesh laser-welded into a slim rim. The result is the strainer here — 35 grams, no flash, just a tool that disappears into your ritual. Each batch is inspected in Kunming before shipping, with Sandry personally checking the mesh tension and weld consistency. It’s a small object, but it represents the kind of quiet engineering we believe belongs in every gongfu setup.