Six steps. Six pieces of silk. One idea.

Every jar of tea we sell has been through the same six hands, the same six mornings, before it ever reaches yours. Nothing is rushed to make a shipping date. A leaf that isn't ready waits another day. A hem that isn't straight gets unpicked and sewn again.

We didn't start this company to sell things quickly. We started it because a handful of people in Xi'an still know how to do these two things slowly and well — grow tea the old way, and cut silk the old way — and slow, done well, is worth carrying across an ocean.

So when a box leaves here, it isn't just tea or fabric. It's six mornings of someone's attention, folded in with the leaves and the thread, addressed to you.

Why we ship to the Czech Republic first.

A few years ago I met someone from Brno at a language exchange in Xi'an, over the world's most patient attempt at teaching each other our mother tongues. She corrected my Czech. I corrected her tones. Neither of us learned very much, and neither of us minded.

What I remember most is how she'd hold a cup of tea I made with both hands before drinking it, the way you'd hold something someone had clearly taken care over — and how she wore a scarf her grandmother had sewn, the same unhurried way our seamstresses cut silk here. Two countries, two crafts, the same instinct: make it properly, or don't bother.

That's the small, unofficial reason a Czech address was always going to be one of the first places this company shipped to. Some decisions are supply chain. Some are just personal. Around here, we've taken to calling the tea from that afternoon our "love tea" — 爱情茶.