"On the morning before I left Japan, I decided to take a last-minute walk to a small tea caddy shop I had heard about. According to popular legend, this shop helped inspire Steve Jobs' design philosophy for the iPhone box. The cylindrical tea caddies here are hammered so precisely that the lid appears to float downward when you close it, sealing with an almost magical sense of inevitability."
"Winding through residential streets lined with low wooden buildings, I eventually found the shop. A simple sign on the door read: Kaikado. For a first-time visitor, it's easy to miss - and even a little hard to figure out how to enter. Unlike many Western storefronts, there's no attempt to impress passersby. If you weren't deliberately searching for it, you'd likely walk straight past without noticing."
A traveler visited Kyoto while researching endurance among some of the world's oldest companies. The traveler took a last-minute walk to a small tea caddy shop, Kaikado, known in legend for inspiring Steve Jobs' iPhone box design. The shop's cylindrical tea caddies are hammered so precisely that the lid appears to float downward and seal with an almost magical inevitability. Kaikado's storefront is understated and easy to miss. Founded in 1875 to make chazutsu that preserve tea, the company has grown modestly and remains family-owned, now led by sixth-generation owner Takahiro Yagi. The workshop in Kyoto uses tools and a slow pace largely unchanged for over a century.
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