People Wait 3 Years to Own This Teakettle. Here's Why.

Some people have been waiting 3 years just to own this teakettle.

Not because it's rare. Not because it's expensive.
Because only one workshop on Earth still knows how to finish it.

Meet Sho Kikuchi — the last tsuru blacksmith in Morioka, Japan.
The tsuru is the small iron handle sitting on top of every Nanbu
iron teakettle. Most people never notice it. But without it,
the teakettle is worth nothing.

His master quit a stable government job to save this craft from
disappearing. Now Sho carries that weight forward — forging by
hand what machines cannot replicate, keeping a 400-year-old
tradition alive in a single workshop.

Water boiled in a Nanbu iron teakettle supplements iron intake,
removes chlorine, and softens the taste — which is why demand
from Europe has exploded in recent years. And yet, the craft
that makes it truly valuable is hanging by a thread.