During the months of April and May, we had a donation program running where 5% of sales on all Japanese items would be donated to reconstruction efforts in Japan.

Well, you heard our call and answered. Daily we had customers specifically coming by to pick up a piece (or multiple pieces!) of Japanese handicraft. Thanks to all of you, we were able to donate $1050 to Architecture for Humanity.

We selected Architecture for Humanity because we believe that design is essential to everyday life. Reconstruction of a devastated area is a long and slow process, as well as overwhelming, so in order to do it properly, designers and architects play an essential role. We especially like the efforts to rebuild marketplaces, which in turn provide store fronts for merchants who lost their storefronts and acts as a place for the community to come together.

To read about current projects in Japan and learn how to make your own donations, visit Architecture for Humanity.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for helping us make a sizable donation to reconstruction in Japan.

Well, there is still some content coming from our trip, but we’d like to share it when the new products arrive at the shop, plus it’s nice to be home and talk about things that are happening to us at the moment.

We were just at the cottage enjoying the warm weather, and for us warm weather signifies cocktail season.

We’ve been working on a few collaborations this summer, and one we were especially excited for was our collaboration with NY based wood turner Chris Gallagher. Chris, hands down makes the world’s best cocktail muddlers, and we asked him to make us a collection of his famous PUG! muddlers in Teak, Wenge, and Rosewood for the shop.

The collection’s inspiration came from the bar ware Jens Quistgaard designed for Dansk in the 1950s, pieces like the ice bucket and citrus cutting board pictured below.

You can really see the connection in this shot, those lines are strong and tapered much like mid century Danish furniture.

One of the most famous muddler based drinks is the mojito, one of our summer favorites!

This gorgeous black lacquer sakura plate holding our mint garnish ($120) is a brand new piece available in the shop, it is hand tooled by Kyoto based artisan Tomii Takashi and then finished with traditional black lacquer-ware made from the sap of lacquer trees.

The beautiful bamboo coal chikutan stir sticks are $30 for pack of 3.

We also have a collection of Japanese black lacquer spoons by Takashi-san from tea spoons starting at $35 to this large hand tooled spoon for $60.

First step: Cut your lime into smaller wedges.

Pictured: vintage Dansk citrus cutting board.

Step 2: Add about 4 wedges to a sturdy glass.

Step 3: Add 2 spoonfuls of raw sugar to the lime. Japanese artisan spoon is optional, but it seems to make the drinks more pleasurable to make.

Step 4: Muddle together the lime and the sugar, you want to release all of those essential oils and flavours!

Step 5: add your mint leaves, I personally like using a big bunch.

Step 6: You’ll need to make some crushed ice now, take some standard ice from your freezer and put it in a strong container like a stainless steel cocktail shaker. Use your muddler to break the ice into pieces, woods like teak, wenge, and rosewood, are very dense hard woods and water resistant so don’t worry about damaging your muddler.

Pictured: Tools of the trade.

Step 7: Add ice then rum, and then a a splash of soda water. Give it a quick stir add your mint garnish and enjoy!

If you really want to get fancy you can rub mint around the rim of your glass so that you get a nice mint smell when you go in for your first sip.

We used these mason jars which made some ridiculously large drinks. Add sunshine and we were properly drowsy for the afternoon. So tasty though!

Muddlers are currently available in the shop ($85 each). They will be available online via our webstore next week. We will announce when the site goes live! We can’t wait to make ordering from afar a more efficient process. We will miss the one-to-one conversations we’ve been having though.

We woke up day two with a smile on our face, because we were going on a day trip out of town. We had already planned to have some breakfast at Cafe Bar No. 9 located on Uudenmaankatu. The only problem was we were way too early! Breakfast isn’t served during the week until 11:00! Thankfully there was a beautiful little cafe called Cafe Fleuriste just a few steps away.

The cafe is a brilliant concept, a flower shop and cafe in one! The inside felt like a real authentic Parisian cafe, and the coffee was fantastic.

How could you walk by this place without peeking in?

Well we killed some time and walked over to Cafe Bar No. 9 for some much needed breakfast.

A really good platter of food, I had just finished a coffee a few minutes before so I opted for fresh squeezed orange juice, always a good decision.

A cool art installation was happening down town.

After breakfast we met up with Milla and Hiro from Kauniste and Minka, Milla’s sister at our hotel. We piled in Minka’s car and headed for our day trip to Porvoo.

We were really excited to meet Milla and Hiro because we never had a face to put to the people we talk to through emails! Kauniste is a special brand for us because we were the first retailers in North America to carry their linens, and it’s always been our go to gift recommendation. I mean they’re $20 bucks and they’re hand screened!

We were in Porvoo to check out the local antique shops, and of course the beautiful old city. Milla told us that a lot of tourists forget that the city is real and people actually live in all of the homes. Many tourists end up peeking through windows and hanging out in resident’s backyards.

It is really easy to think that way, it feels like an open air museum. Plus the gaggle of teenagers on school trips add to the congestion in narrow alley ways.

Antiikki

We really loved this painting.

A big collection of Finnish glass, the purple i-glass decanter (top left…can you see it?) was really tempting but it was still over 100 euros.

We tried our luck at the local Salvation Army type place. Minka and Milla found a book on foraging mushrooms. It was so interesting to hear how connected to nature a lot of Finns are, they told us that it is not uncommon for neighbors to lie about having mushroom patches to keep all of the mushrooms for themselves.

Mushroom season in an exciting time!

A vintage Wirkkala vase for 17 euros.

A quick stop to get some chocolates.

Lunch time, there is one really good place in Porvoo for lunch, I’m not sure what it is called but it was the perfect place to sit outside and have some lunch, and a pint.

The interior was warm and woodsy, there was a little salad and soup bar set up inside.

Juli had the quiche.

I had the roast beef with root vegetables. The Marimekko dishware was a nice touch–love this line.

This shop wasn’t open. What a tease! It looked like it had some of the best selection…

Peeking in the resident’s backyards, like a bad tourist.

We’re sad that we didn’t get a proper shot of Hiro and Milla! We thought we would at the end of the day but Hiro left us before the end and we missed our opportunity.

We love white plaster covered bricks, it reminds us of Alvar Aalto.

Afterwards we headed over for some tea and biscuits at Milla and Hiro’s studio.

In the studio each of the tea towels are hand screened and hung up to dry.

Milla, Minka, and Hiro: Thank you so much for spending the day with us, we had a wonderful time with you guys! Hopefully we’ll be able to return the favor if you ever come to Toronto!

After our visit we headed over for an early dinner at Ateljé Finne, the former studio of famous Finnish sculptor Gunnar Finne. There are those white plaster walls again.

The restaurant is really beautiful but we didn’t get any shots of the inside because we didn’t want to weird out any of the other diners.

Juli started with a salmon and sesame spring roll.

One of the most delicious things in the world – white asparagus soup, so good, so buttery.

For the mains Juli had the fish of the day, which was caught that morning.

I had the protein and starch dish, delicious.

We walked our dinner off and headed back to the hotel.

There’s a little more travel posting to do, but it may get spread out among other content. Thanks for traveling with us!