Your favorite coffee cupperโs favorite variegated cupping spoon maker is branching out. Umeshiso, who brought a little pizzazz to the otherwise steely world of coffee tasting with their rainbow-colored โgay spoons,โ are looking to liven up other parts of your sensory experience with a new line of multi-colored chopsticks, and the campaign is live on GoFundMe now!
Started three years ago by Umeko Motoyoshi (host of the podcast A Better Table), Umeshiso describes itself as a โsmall gaysian-owned business,โ whose spoons have been featured in Bon Appetit, Forbes, and New York Magazine. More than just very cool looking utensils, Umeshisoโs rainbow spoons “celebrate people being themselves,” Motoyoshi tells Sprudge, and โreminded me that I belongโ at the cupping table, a place often dominated by straight, white males. And if you have been on the coffee corners of social media in the three years since their creation, youโve no doubt seen these cute lil dippers come across your news feed.
Now, rainbow spoons come in a variety of sizesโbig, little, and miniโand finishes, so Motoyoshi, along with Yeonji Lofland, are turning their sights to chopsticks. “One of my very first words was ohashi, the Japanese word for chopsticks,” Motoyoshi states. “I use ohashi for everything, from stirring pour-overs to eating hot cheetos. Chopsticks are a versatile and dynamic implement, and a central part of my Asian American identity… We joke that they are gay chopsticks but it truly means a lot to offer a product that represents two identities I am so honored to hold.”
Via their GoFundMe, Umeshiso is looking to raise $2,250, which will help go toward defraying costs associated with packaging and marketing materialsโmade by Asian artists in the coffee space Felix Tran, Laura Clark, and Ziru Moโshipping supplies, and extra labor. The campaign has raised over a third of its goal in just one dayโs time.
And if you need any more reason to back this campaign, Motoyoshi proffers a few coffee-centric uses for chopsticks. “I use a chopstick every morning to stir my AeroPress! They are also perfect for stirring pour-over blooms and YES for doing that swirly thing in the coffee bed to get a more even extraction.” And honestly, don’t you think your spoon could use a matching companion?
For more information, visit Umeshiso’s rainbow chopsticks GoFundMe page.
Zac Cadwaladerย is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas.ย Read more Zac Cadwaladerย on Sprudge.
