Handcrafted copper and brass items for tea, bathing and daily ritual. Metals that age rather than wear out.
Pure brass tea strainers hand-crafted to help you prepare a nourishing and mindful cup of tea
Improve your oral health and counter bad breath with a handmade copper tongue scraper.
A luxurious handcrafted copper bathing bowl inviting the indulgence and ritual of bathing into the everyday.
Select Options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page
Copper chai pot and milk warmer with a brass handle for healthful, traditional home preparation of hot drinks. A new shipment of Chai Pots is arriving in time for the Christmas season! If you preorder one, we’ll be in touch to see whether you’d like to secure one of our imperfect Chai Pots currently in stock, or if you’d prefer to wait for the new shipment. If your order includes other items, we can arrange to send these ahead of the Chai Pot for an additional shipping cost.
Select Options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page
Handmade brass spoon, a stylish kitchen utensil for measuring spices, powders or tea. Available in two sizes.
Select Options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page
Copper and brass ware for daily ritual
Copper and brass have been used for vessels and utensils for thousands of years, long before stainless steel existed, and they are still used in the places where those traditions never lapsed. The reason is durability: these are metals that develop rather than degrade, so a piece bought once can stay in a household for generations and look better for it.
The range here spans the day rather than a single room. Pieces for brewing and pouring, pieces for bathing, and pieces for the small routines that bracket a morning and an evening. They sit alongside the rest of our ritualware collection.
FAQ and further info about copper and brass ware
Brassware is any object made from brass, an alloy of copper and zinc. The proportions determine the colour and the hardness, which is why brass ranges from pale gold to a deep reddish tone. It has been used for utensils, vessels and instruments for millennia because it is hard-wearing, does not rust, and can be worked into fine shapes. In practice, brassware means the everyday objects made from it: spoons, strainers, stands, bowls and jugs.
Copper is a pure metal. Brass is copper alloyed with zinc, which makes it harder and gives it a yellower colour. Copper conducts heat better, which is why it is preferred for anything that warms liquid, and it is softer, so it dents more easily but is also easier to shape by hand. Brass holds an edge and a form better, which suits handles, utensils and anything that takes daily handling. Many pieces use both, with a copper body and a brass handle.
Longevity and repairability, mostly. Stainless steel is cheaper and needs no thought, but it is difficult to repair and nobody keeps it for sentimental reasons. Copper and brass can be re-polished, re-tinned and reshaped, and they carry the marks of use rather than looking worn out. There is also a sensory argument that is hard to quantify but obvious in the hand: these are heavier, warmer objects, and using them slows you down slightly, which is the entire point of a ritual.
Both metals oxidise in air, which darkens the surface over time into a patina. It is a surface reaction, not damage, and many people prefer the deeper, warmer tone it produces to the bright polish of a new piece. Humidity accelerates it, so anything kept in a bathroom will darken faster than the same piece in a kitchen. If you would rather keep it bright, polishing reverses it entirely.
A paste of lemon juice and salt, or lemon and bicarbonate of soda, lifts tarnish in a minute or two on either metal. Rub it on, rinse it off, dry it thoroughly. Commercial metal polishes work faster but leave residue, so they are best avoided on anything that touches food or skin. The most useful habit is simply drying pieces after use, since standing water is what leaves permanent marks.
For dry goods, brief contact and hot drinks, yes, which covers spoons, strainers and pouring vessels. What both metals do not suit is prolonged storage of acidic food or liquid, because acid draws copper out of the surface. In practice that means not leaving citrus, vinegar or wine standing in a copper vessel overnight. Pieces intended for cooking are usually lined for this reason.
It is one of the better things to give, because it is the sort of object people appreciate but rarely buy for themselves, and it does not date. A brass piece paired with a tea from our organic tea collection makes a complete present, and there are ready-made versions in our organic gift collection.