Tapari

Leaves, Stitched With Bamboo. That Is The Whole List.

People in Nepal have been eating off sal leaves for centuries and the method has not required improving. Mature leaves are picked by hand without harming the tree, stitched together with fine bamboo slivers called sinka, then dried and pressed into plates and bowls. No chemicals, no glue, no plastic film, no lining, nothing invisible doing something clever. Just leaves and bamboo, which is why the finished plate can go on a compost heap at the end of the evening and quietly cease to exist.

It is also, rather unexpectedly, beautiful. Each plate carries the veining and colour variation of the leaves it was made from, so a table laid with them looks considered rather than apologetic, which is not a sentence anybody has previously written about a disposable plate. The range runs to plates, bowls and small sauce pots in sizes from canapé to dinner. The company was established in 2017 with a Cornwall base, and production stays in Nepal where the skill actually lives, providing work to women in rural villages between farm harvests.

For more for the table, have a browse of our dining and tableware and kitchen and dining collections, or carry on to kitchen, the utility room and gift sets and hampers. There are more businesses like this one in small batch artisans, and more from further afield in Asian design.