Ceremony

Watermelon Shiso, built on a Keemun black tea base grown in the misty hills of Anhui 🍉 Michelle’s hometown. Sweet, floral, and full of story.

A lunchbox the littles would approve of 🍙 House-made onigiri, mochi, and Harvest Maine pummies fruit bites 🍡

Ordered ahead so the only decision left today is which sandy spot. Summer’s doing it right with Seven Stars Bakery

Different ingredient.
Same obsession with origin.

Ceremony x Dandelion.
Nearly five years in.

Growing is one thing.
Growing without losing your point of view is the real work.

We approach tea the way they approach cacao:
place first.

Direct sourcing looks less romantic behind the scenes.

Before chocolate is chocolate, it’s fruit.
Before matcha is matcha, it’s tencha.

When the sourcing is good, the ingredient doesn’t need much.

Origin isn’t a footnote.
It is the flavor.

Their cacao mill.
Our matcha mill.

Different raw material.
Same respect for process.

Slowly transformed.
Never rushed.

Kyoto photo
A piece of Dandelion chocolate on my pillow in Kyoto, during a Ceremony sourcing trip.

The world is big.
The red string is short.

Catching you up on our summer, roughly ☀️
it’s been a hot one, so we leaned into it. Cold brew teas built around our favorite seasonal fruit, a trip through the mill to remember where this all starts, a free yoga pop-up in the park with our friends at West Side Yoga just because we love this community, sando being sando, and a lot of kitchen experiments we’re not ready to talk about yet 🤫🤫

Our team’s favorite season: all things sparkling. This one’s yamenohana, a single estate single origin matcha, poured over KIMINO sparkling ume plum. Umecha 🍵

Meet me off the grid for a personal note on balance, burnout, and why doing everything right still left me unhappy.

An ode to Tomato girl summer 🍅