I’ll admit: confronted by orderly shelves of glossy, glazed tiles and rows of curvy, luminous dishware at Heath Ceramincs in Sausalito, I had the impulse to touch every single shape and color. It was with my inner kid-in-a-candy-store barely contained that I left the showroom for the factory tour. (Totally worthwhile, btw). Among the things we learned from the wonderfully understated perfectionists at Heath is that they have a special Swiss ceiling built in 1960 (shaped something like ripples on a potato chip). It creates airy, day lit space in their factory without the need for the usual number of supporting walls. Edith Heath’s vision was to create contemporary hand-crafted stoneware there that would look like nothing else that had ever been made.

Heath tableware has always been designed so that diners can see and feel the natural elements that form each dish—the California clay underneath. That’s the slender unglazed rim on your Heath bowl or mug.  So committed to a connection with materials, the artisans at Heath have been on a mission since the 1940s to find and refine the clay that makes the unglazed rim a hallmark of great design instead of an adventure in scratched lips and fingers.

I was thinking about the Peruvian cocoa beans we’re sourcing right now and that kind of authenticity —that the tang of the distant Amazon headwaters and mist-shrouded Andes is the unglazed rim, the voice of the inner materials talking straight to your tongue…