Gōngfū script long-sleeve tee

<i>Gōng fū shū fǎ cháng xiù shān</i>

工夫书法长袖衫

A single-batch long-sleeve tee carrying the characters 工夫 hand-stencilled in iron-ink across the back — an everyday gesture of tea identity.

$60USD · 220 g

Weight

220 g

Harvest

Spring 2026

Processing

Midweight ring-spun organic cotton, garment dyed, hand stencilled with iron-ink. Each piece finished in-house by the Kunming atelier.

Sourced by

Sandry Law

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Stencilled by hand in Kunming

Sandry Law, who normally spends her weeks in Yunnan’s tea mountains vetting maocha, turned her procurement lens inward for this piece. She sourced a deadstock lot of organic cotton jersey from a small-batch mill in Huzhou, then commissioned a Kunming sign-painter to carve the two characters 工夫 — gōngfū — into a heavyweight stencil. The ink is a home-brewed iron-gall recipe, cooked down with tea tannins from spent sheng pu-erh leaves to bind the pigment to the fibre. Only eighty-four pieces were made, each hand-finished in the back room of the Teamotea Kunming office while the rest of the crew cupped spring arrivals. The long-sleeve design bridges between studio wear and teahouse uniform: substantial enough for early-morning gongfu sessions, clean enough to host a tasting. Every garment carries a tiny stamp on the inside hem that links back to tea.style, and a hand-numbered swing tag printed on leftover map paper from tea.travel.

The leaf, brewed

Texture and patina, not tasting notes

dry leaf

Crisp, structured cotton with a soft peach-fuzz surface — the fabric feels already worn-in before the first wash.

wet leaf

After soaking in cold water, the cotton relaxes and the ink lock reveals a faint, smoky smell of iron and soot.

liquor

The stencil work is crisp, each stroke holding micro-shadows that shift under natural light like liquor in a porcelain cup.

aroma

A scent of clean cotton, sun, and the metallic tang of iron-ink — the smell of a print studio’s calm morning.

taste

The tee feels substantial but breathable, the sleeves long enough to cuff twice over the wrist, the neckline stays flat after repeated wear.

finish

After years, the iron-ink will fade like a well-used stamp, leaving a ghost trace — its own huigan.

Brewing

A method, not a recipe.

Method

wear

Ratio

Fit true to size; compare against our size guide for a relaxed silhouette.

Water temp

Machine wash cold, line dry in shade. Iron inside out, never directly on the print.

First infusion

Wear straight out of the bag, no pre-rinse needed.

Subsequent

Each wear softens the cotton further; the print develops character with machine-wash cycles.

Treat the garment like a tea cloth — gentle handling yields decades of quiet service.

Sourced by

Sandry Law

Head of Procurement (China)

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