A small room
built around a kettle.
zymoraecho began as a single shelf of tins in a borrowed bookstore. Seven years later, it's still small — only ten seats, one quiet room, and the same belief that good tea asks for nothing but your attention.
Founded by two friends and one stubborn teapot.
Maren and Ito met at a tea farm in Wazuka in 2016. He had grown up beside a kettle in Kyoto; she had spent a decade chasing harvests across Yunnan and Assam. They opened zymoraecho in the spring of 2018, in a converted ironmonger's shop on NW Thurman, with twenty-two cultivars and a single hand-painted sign.
The atelier hasn't grown much since — and that's the point. We'd rather pour 80 cups well than 800 in a hurry.
Four quiet principles.
Slowness is hospitality.
Service unfolds at the pace of the tea, not the clock. We've never owned a buzzer.
Sourcing is a relationship.
We know the names of every farm and most of the families behind our leaves.
Less, but better.
Fifty-four cultivars is our ceiling. When something new comes in, something else rests.
Quiet is a luxury.
We protect the volume of the room as carefully as the temperature of the water.
