Before You Hold It: From Bamboo to Your Daily Cup
THEYUNXIYour fingers meet the weave before you know the work behind it.
You lift the cup, feel the fine lines of bamboo, and take a sip. It is an ordinary movement. Preparing the material for it is anything but simple.
Before those strands could follow the curve of porcelain, there was bamboo to choose, split, dry, and refine. We work with Liu Luolin and Hualin Banghu Culture and Art Studio to bring that material into a cup you will want to reach for again.
THE YUNXI shapes the cup’s design and intended use. Liu and her team bring the knowledge that turns bamboo into the surface beneath your fingers.
It starts with choosing the bamboo
For the Daily Cup, we choose ci bamboo from Pingle, in Qionglai, Sichuan, where it has long been used for porcelain-body bamboo weaving.
Its long sections between nodes allow longer, continuous strands to be prepared, reducing the need for joins during weaving. Carefully worked, the material becomes fine and flexible enough to follow the curves of a porcelain vessel.
But a suitable species does not make every stem suitable.
Liu and her team examine the bamboo itself: its condition, the spacing between nodes, signs of insect damage, and how it responds to handling and bending. Selection continues as the bamboo is cut and opened, revealing the material they will work with.
What looks like a choice made in the bamboo grove carries forward into the finished cup.
The weather sets the pace. The maker decides when.
After the green outer surface is removed, the bamboo pieces are spread out to dry.
There is no fixed number of days that tells the studio when they are ready. Temperature, humidity, sunlight, and wind change the pace. Each day, the team returns to the bamboo, handling the pieces and checking their flexibility.
Insufficient drying can leave the material prone to further shrinkage as it loses moisture. Bamboo that becomes too dry for the next stage can be brittle and more difficult to work without breaking.
The aim is a workable condition, not the driest possible piece of bamboo.
A schedule can allow time for drying. It cannot replace the judgment of the person picking up a piece, feeling how it bends, and deciding whether to continue.
From a stem to a strand
The bamboo is progressively split, thinned, and refined. Pieces that once formed part of a rigid stem become narrow strands that can be guided around porcelain.
In our partner studio’s experience, around 100 kg of bamboo yields approximately 1 kg of finished strands for weaving. The yield varies with the material and the strand specifications.
As the pieces become finer, the studio continues to check their thickness, surface condition, and consistency. Two strands may look equally narrow but behave differently when worked.
By the time weaving begins, the bamboo has already passed through many decisions. Now the maker works around a fixed porcelain body, guiding the strands and adjusting their fit and tension as the woven surface grows.
Fine enough to admire. Made to be used.
For the Daily Cup, we use bamboo strands approximately 1 mm wide. This refers to their width, not their thickness.
The finest possible weave was never our only goal.
Through repeated trials with the cup, we looked for a balance between delicate handwork, visible texture, and everyday handling. Finer strands can create remarkably intricate work; wider ones give the surface a bolder rhythm. At approximately 1 mm, we found the scale we wanted for this design.
From across the table, the bamboo reads as a warm, continuous surface. Up close, the individual strands remain visible. In the hand, the weave has a presence of its own beside the smooth porcelain.
We considered that texture together with the cup’s proportions, the exposed drinking rim, and the area where your fingers rest.
We wanted a cup worth looking closely at—and one you would feel comfortable making part of an ordinary day.
Where the work belongs
Before packing, we check the porcelain, the fit of the weave, and the finished edges your fingers will meet. Natural differences in bamboo tone and grain remain part of the material. A secure, carefully finished surface remains part of our standard.
The finished cup may end up beside your laptop, next to a half-read book, or across the breakfast table from someone you love.
That is where we want this work to go.
You do not need to remember every preparation step when you make coffee or tea. But you might turn the cup in your hands and notice something you had not seen before: the path of a strand, a small shift in colour, the way the weave follows the porcelain.
The bamboo was not always this fine, or arranged this way. Someone had to understand it before it could become something familiar to you.
And that is what we hope for: a cup you first choose for its beauty, then keep reaching for because you enjoy using it.