Support Local: Sekine Factory Coffee Canister + Bella Donovan Coffee

An ideal storage space for coffee, naturally

This holiday season, we’re spotlighting the artists and craftspeople who make beautiful objects in the cities we call home. Read on for a close look at our Coffee Canister + Coffee pairing, which we created in collaboration with the Tokyo-based small business Sekine Factory.

Coffee is precious cargo—just ask Kolshitsky. We take great care to get our beans to you at the height of deliciousness, so it is only fitting that we offer you a way to store them once they have made it to your kitchen. To solve this problem elegantly, we turned to Mr. Sekine and his extraordinarily simple and beautiful kiri boxes.

Kiri wood is not only one of the world’s lightest woods, it is also resistant to the ravages of humid air, which makes it ideal for storing coffee. 

Mr. Sekine wanted to bridge the ancient and modern uses of kiri boxes with his custom design. As he puts it:

“For centuries, kiri wood was one of the best ways to preserve treasured objects. A sword, precious book, or silk kimono would remain safe from outside elements when tightly enclosed in a box or drawer made from it. My goal in making a kiri box just for coffee was to bridge the ancient and modern. I love coffee. It makes people’s lives richer. I wanted to connect one traditional object used for safekeeping with a contemporary treasure worth storing.”

Our custom kiri coffee canister is produced just outside of Tokyo. An interior lid sits directly on top of the beans to minimize exposure to moisture and air. The exterior lid is painted in one corner with a sliver of Blue Bottle blue. We’re pairing Mr. Sekine’s fine canister with our most popular blended coffee, Bella Donovan.