From Kunming leather tanneries to the road
Sandry Law, Head of Procurement for Teamotea, spends half the year on the road between tea mountains, tasting labs, and partner factories. His kit needed to survive the same rough travel. The leather deluxe edition grew out of a collaboration with a small tannery outside Kunming that still uses traditional vegetable tanning — mimosa and quebracho barks, no chrome, no shortcuts. The leather case, now custom-fitted with foam padding for each glass piece, was originally a one‑off Sandry stitched for himself; fellow sommeliers kept asking where they could get one. The glass components come from a Guangdong factory Sandry has visited quarterly for six years, checking every batch for clarity, heat‑resistance, and that perfect thin rim. Unlike the canvas version, this kit includes a thermos slot — because a true sommelier never travels without hot water. Sandry’s quality‑control checklist for this kit runs to 42 points. Each piece is inspected under daylight spectrum, packed, and then re‑checked after a simulated drop test. It’s the same kit Sandry carries when he flies from Kunming to Hunan to assess next season’s yellow teas.