Susumuya Chaten Susumu Tea Caddy & Scoop Set

Cast Brass · Silver-Plated Interior · Made with FUTAGAMI

• 01 Cast in solid brass — a technique rarely, if ever, used for tea caddies
• 02 The brass deepens to a warm amber tone the more you use it
• 03 Built to last a lifetime, and to be handed down to the next generation

A cast brass tea caddy, beautiful and functional, made to be handed down

Beautiful, never tiresome, and functional — the Susumu Tea Caddy is one you grow more attached to with every use, and will want to pass on to the next generation. A tea caddy, or chazutsu, is the airtight canister used in Japan to keep loose-leaf tea fresh. This one was created by tea specialist Susumuya Chaten in collaboration with FUTAGAMI, a cast-brass brand based in Takaoka, Toyama Prefecture — a city that has been a center of metal casting since the early 17th century. The result is a tea caddy cast in solid brass, an approach rarely, if ever, taken with tea caddies.

Ten years from now, twenty years from now, and on to your children: it was born of the wish to make a genuine tea caddy that could be handed down to the next generation.

A brass tea caddy made to be handed down, growing more beautiful with age

In the casting process, molten brass is poured into a mold and the piece is then machined to its finished form. Tea caddies have traditionally been made by rolling sheet material into a cylinder; the Susumu Tea Caddy overturns that convention. Its commanding presence, satisfying weight and beautiful exterior are the result of several years of development and the skill of the craftspeople who made it. The interior is silver-plated to protect tea leaves from moisture and from picking up other odors.

Beauty that comes through in its weight and presence

With use, the brass deepens to a warm amber tone, developing a character entirely its own. It comes in three sizes — Small, Medium and Large — so you can choose by how much tea you keep and how you use it. It works just as well for coffee beans.

Three sizes: Small (1.1 oz / 30 g), Medium (3.5 oz / 100 g), Large (7.1 oz / 200 g)

The matching Susumu Tea Scoop is just as beautiful, with the brass left in its as-cast surface texture. Its closed tip makes it easy to scoop up leaves, while the open mouth at the other end slides smoothly into the tea. Each scoop naturally measures about 4–5 g (approx. 0.15 oz) of leaves, and it settles into your hand the more you use it. When not in use, it stores inside the caddy's inner lid.

Everyday tea time, with tools you'll use for a lifetime.

The original tea scoop comes with the set — lifelong tools for your tea time

Choosing tea the way you choose coffee — Kagoshima green tea, presented honestly

Susumuya Chaten is a Japanese tea specialist born from a tea wholesaler with more than 100 years of history in Kagoshima, the prefecture at the southern tip of Kyushu. It deals exclusively in Kagoshima tea, including Chiran and Kirishima teas, named for growing districts within the prefecture. Its fourth-generation president, Kotaro Niihara, set out to address a contradiction.

"Kagoshima is one of Japan's leading tea regions, and it has now overtaken Shizuoka to become the country's largest producer — it grows a full third of all Japanese tea. Yet most of it is shipped out of the prefecture and disappears as raw material for blends. The region's name never makes it onto the label, there are few specialist tea shops in Kagoshima itself, and the tea simply sits on supermarket shelves. I want to change how little Kagoshima tea is recognized compared with tea from Shizuoka or Kyoto."
— Kotaro Niihara, President, Susumuya Chaten

"To share the true quality of Kagoshima tea, just as it is." That wish is where Susumuya Chaten began.

Kagoshima is also known for producing more single-cultivar teas than other regions. In a place where cultivars such as Saemidori, Asatsuyu and Yutakamidori all thrive, Susumuya Chaten's defining approach is a light roast and original blends, each designed to bring out the full character of individual cultivars.

Kagoshima tea, grown from a wide range of cultivars

Just as coffee drinkers choose their beans and roast level, green tea tastes entirely different depending on the cultivar and how long the fresh leaves are steamed. Susumuya Chaten wants to bring the pleasure of knowing those differences — and finding your own favorite cup — into everyday life. Aiming to build a Japanese café culture around tea, much as one has grown around coffee, it runs relaxed, unpretentious tea shops in Kagoshima and Tokyo.

Susumuya Chaten's flagship store in Kagoshima

Sweetness, aroma and color: first-flush green tea, hand-selected and lightly roasted

Susumuya Chaten uses only ichibancha — the first flush, picked in the year's first harvest — and finishes it with its own light roast. Keeping the leaves as close as possible to their fresh state draws out each cultivar's natural flavor, but it leaves no room to hide flaws, and judging the heat demands real skill.

A demanding technique that keeps the leaves close to fresh, drawing out their natural flavor

It all begins with selecting the leaves. Every year in Kagoshima, tea from farms across the prefecture is sold at auction. As a tea master, Niihara tastes hundreds of lots side by side to identify the finest of the year. Even tea from the same farm changes from year to year with the weather and growing conditions, so he starts from zero each season, committed to choosing that year's very best leaf.

Kotaro Niihara, president and tea master of Susumuya Chaten

The chosen leaves are carefully sorted by the tea master into two grades according to shape, size and condition, then lightly roasted. Because Japanese green tea is so simple, the character of the land and of the people who make it comes straight through in its flavor and aroma.

Sorted by hand into two grades by shape, size and condition, then lightly roasted

This roasting method, kept unchanged since the shop was founded, is behind what customers tell them: "I can't drink any other tea now," and "It was so good when I received it as a gift that now I want to give it to someone myself." Only when sweetness, aroma and suishoku — the color of the brewed tea — all come together does it become Susumuya Chaten tea.

In Kagoshima, properly cold winters let the leaves store up sweetness, and flat growing land makes careful cultivation possible. Susumuya Chaten visits the farms in person and builds close relationships with the growers. Niihara believes that sharing with them the story of where their tea ends up, and who drinks it, also helps protect its quality.

No special tools or formal rituals are needed. It doesn't even have to be a kyusu, the traditional side-handled Japanese teapot. Building a culture in which tea fits naturally into daily life, in whatever form suits each person — that remains Susumuya Chaten's constant goal.

Japanese tea culture, matcha included, is drawing growing attention from around the world. With that momentum behind it, Susumuya Chaten continues to share the richness of a single cup of tea from Kagoshima, in Japan and beyond.

Sharing Japanese tea with the world, from Kagoshima