The spice merchant whose shop your mother trusted. Whose father sold to her mother. You watched him go gray behind that same counter, watched his daughter learn to scoop cardamom by feel. He came to your wedding. He knew when someone in your family passed.

The tea seller who remembered your mother's taste, who guided your palate as you grew. The Japanese chaho, the Taiwanese family roaster whose family had been blending for three generations.

When you bought from them, you weren't just buying turmeric or tea. You were buying trust and relationship built across generations. You knew whose hands touched your food and those hands knew you.

Tea and spices have always lived at the heart of a ritual. The morning chai in a North Indian kitchen. The filter coffee that begins a South Indian day. The meditative rhythm of Chinese gongfu brewing. The reverence of a Japanese tea ceremony.

These aren't just flavors — they're how cultures say I'm home.

But somewhere along the way, we lost the thread.

Now your turmeric comes from who-knows-where, blended from hundreds of anonymous farms, pushed through layers of wholesalers, and left to sit on a fluorescent-lit shelf. No story. No face. No roots.

We wanted that connection back.