Tea Scoops by Samorost

I have been playing with tea pick design a little bit and I come up with this shape. It is two-sided, nicely balanced when hold in the centre. I recently discovered the beauty of Robinia pseudoacacia wood, also known in its native territory as black locust. l oak and black locust wood

I have been recently enjoying making one side closed tea scoops. This one is from maple with naturally blackened outer surface. Really love this black and white combination.

I wrote about curly ash wood from our garden, this is the first tea scoop from this gorgeous wood. Quite lot of work on this one, not an easy wood to work with. I tried new shape here. wavy carved bottom nice flame going in here

Lately, during my landscape wandering I was looking for some unusual, interesting wood and I was lucky to collect some very special pieces of wood. From time to time I will be posting about each of them. This is the first one. It comes from the old forest pond. The pond was recently totally rebuild and trees around the pond were cut down, kind of drastic interference. I am bit sad about it, the place was kind of magical. But at least I was able to collect some wood there. It comes from old trees around the pond, mostly roots from ripped trees. What really caught my interest was some old branches and stumps with roots which were for a long time under the water and they are darkened hardened from it. Not sure about this wood, it could be spruce. Really interesting material. These pictures are before applying oil and shellac. The wood will be much darker then. Will post it later. Here is one shot - treated with tea seeds oil. And this is the forest pond before renovat...

It is a real joy to make these. Trying different designs. from the left: unknown root, oak root, beech, oak

Buckthorn wood is one of my favourites and I think it deserves some attention. The one I was able to collect is particularly beautiful. It comes from old, partly dead tree. The wood is rotten on the outside but healthy inside. I discovered this by accident when I broke small branch and saw a nice wood/grain inside. The wood is quite hard and fragile, not easy to work with. It has a interesting smell which reminds me the smell of an old furniture. The grain and wood color is spectacular and when polished it has a certain depth as the light goes quite beneath the surface, especially in the sun looks like a jewel. Also the scoop gives you due to its characteristics certain feel in your hands which is somehow different from other woods. Here are some photos of recently finished tea scoop.

Petr Novák's pot on the tea bridge in Mirka Randová's boat. I usually like to have something beneath my tea pot or cup when making the tea. A wooden coaster or something. I am using slate or other tea stone and I recently purchased tea boat made by Mirka Randová.  It is absolutely beautiful. From the beginning I knew that I wanna make a wooden coaster or something to put inside so the pot can stand on it. And I like the wood and pottery or stone combination, it adds warmth to it. So I dared to upgrade Mirka's boat with oak "tea bridge". I like how the pot is elevated from the boat and also how the water or tea is dropping from the bridge, it makes nice sound and it is beautiful to watch. I am quite happy with it, it is joy to use. with Petr's cup