From the procurement table to your tea station
Sandry Law, our Head of Procurement, found the weave for this apron in a small workshop outside Kunming that specialises in workwear for Yunnan’s tea factories. The team had been using a similar canvas for staff uniforms during pressing and packing, and Sandry noticed how the fabric aged — darkening at the creases, softening without losing body. He spent a week on-site, testing weight, drape, and how the apron moved when someone leaned over a tea table or reached into a low oven. We added a chest pocket, angled for a tasting spoon or a notebook, and kept the cross-back strap so weight distributes evenly across the shoulders. Each piece is cut, sewn and washed by the same group of eight makers. The charcoal colour comes from a non-toxic reactive dye that bonds into the fibre, so it doesn’t sit on the surface like a pigment print. It arrives feeling like the start of something — a garment built to hold the mess and rhythm of real service. We named it simply after the colour, because the story is in the wearing.