Bamboo
The material for everything that touches dry tea and nothing that holds hot liquid. Whisks, scoops, trays and tongs are bamboo because it is light, strong along the grain, easy to split finely and gentle on leaf. It is also the material most reliably ruined by the way people clean it.
What it is
A grass, not a wood, and hollow between nodes. Splitting along the grain is what makes a chasen possible: a single piece of bamboo can be divided into over a hundred prongs thin enough to flex without any of them being a separate part. It is unfinished in teaware, without varnish or oil, because a coating would defeat the point.
What it does to your tea
Nothing chemically, and mechanically quite a lot. A bamboo scoop lifts whole leaf without crushing it, where a metal kitchen spoon's edge shears it. A bamboo whisk flexes enough to suspend matcha without scratching a glazed bowl. Bamboo tongs handle hot cups without the heat conduction of metal.
What it suits
Dry leaf and dry powder. Trays, where it absorbs spills and is light enough to move. It is unsuited to holding liquid for any length of time.
Care and cleaning
This is the whole discipline. Never detergent, never a dishwasher, never a long soak. Rinse in hot water only what needs rinsing, shake it out and let it dry fully in air. Store dry and uncovered. A chasen dries on a ceramic stand shaped to hold its curve, which keeps the tines from collapsing inward; without one the whisk deforms. Items that only touch dry tea, scoops above all, should never be washed at all, just wiped.
What people get wrong
Washing it like cutlery. Repeated wetting and drying splits bamboo along the grain, and a soak in detergent finishes the job. The other is storing a damp whisk in a closed drawer, which grows mould at the base within weeks. Bamboo teaware is a consumable in a way ceramic is not, and how it is dried decides whether it lasts months or years.
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