Kaikado

Kaikado has made chazutsu — seamed metal tea caddies — in Kyoto since 1875, when founder Kiyosuke Yagi adapted newly imported English tinplate to Japanese tea storage. The design has barely changed in six generations: each caddy is assembled by hand through more than a hundred and thirty steps, its double-walled construction so precise that the lid, placed on the body, sinks slowly shut under its own weight in a near-airtight seal. Copper, brass, and tin-plated caddies are left unlacquered on purpose — they patinate with handling over decades, darkening into individual histories, and the workshop repairs caddies generations old. The sixth-generation family continues production in Kyoto, joined by the Kaikado Café in a converted tram depot. A copper caddy is the essential purchase: an object designed to outlive its buyer and improve the entire way there.

Choose copper if choosing one — it patinates fastest and most beautifully — and stop at the Kaikado Café, where the family serves tea from its own caddies.