From Kunming linen to ceremony room
Sandry Law, Head of Procurement for Teamotea, first encountered the raw flax on a sourcing trip to Kunming in autumn 2024. Tucked behind a tea warehouse, a family-run linen weaver still worked on shuttle looms from the 1960s — the cloth they made was honest, slubby, and smelled of earth. Sandry brought back a bolt and spent three months with a small atelier developing the enzyme wash that gives the overshirt its lived-in softness. The stone colour comes from a mineral dye bath, each batch slightly different, echoing the quiet palette of Yunnan’s ancient tea mountains. Every overshirt is cut and stitched by hand in a workshop that also makes aprons for Kunming tea houses, giving it a lineage of service and ritual. The deep front pocket is sized to hold a tea cloth, a notebook, or a pu-erh pick, nodding to the traditions of gongfu hosting without ever drifting into costume. This is a garment made to be worn daily, over street clothes, during the shared act of tea.