Gold does not announce itself. It waits to be found.

On the Noto Peninsula (能登半島）, where the Sea of Japan meets the hills of Ishikawa, a craft has been practised for over five centuries that the rest of the world has never quite been able to replicate. Wajima lacquer （輪島塗） is not simply lacquerware. It is a discipline – more than 124 documented steps, each carried out by a specialist, each passed from hand to hand until what began as raw wood becomes something that could outlast stone.

The foundation is ji-no-ko: diatomaceous earth, ground fine and mixed with lacquer to create a base of extraordinary hardness. Layer after layer is applied and dried, each one polished before the next arrives.
By the time the surface is ready for decoration, it has already lived a long life in the making.

Then comes the maki-e.

Maki-e (蒔絵), literally “scattered picture” is the art of painting with lacquer and sowing gold powder into the wet surface before it dries. The technique was born in Japan in the Nara period (710–794) and has never been surpassed. Marco Polo’s legendary description of Japan as the “land of gold” is thought by some historians to refer to the maki-e-covered interiors glimpsed by early travellers and passed into legend.

This piece.

The chashaku (茶杓) is the most intimate instrument in the tea ceremony. It touches the matcha directly.
It transfers what cannot be weighed into the bowl. For that reason, the greatest tea masters have always
believed it deserves the greatest care.

This chashaku was made by Hirano Tozan (平野涛山), a craftsperson working in the Wajima lacquer tradition.
At 18 cm, it is a full formal-length scoop, lacquered over its entire body for durability and depth, and decorated with gold maki-e, surface ornamentation applied by hand, grain by grain, in the tradition that
has made Wajima synonymous with the pinnacle of Japanese lacquer art.

To use this scoop is to perform the most ordinary gesture of the ritual with an instrument that is anything but ordinary.

Only one exists.