Where can I buy kattobashi (recycled baseball bat chopsticks) in the US?

October 26, 2018 11:03 AM

The New York Times had a great story yesterday about a chopsticks manufacturer in Japan who rounds up splintered baseball bats and makes them into chopsticks. Super cool. Part of the proceeds go to reforestation efforts for Aodamo trees, which are traditional for Japanese bats but are now in shorter supply. Super super cool. I want some of these. Is there a Japan-centric shop or site where I can buy them in/for shipping to the US?
posted by AgentRocket to Shopping (3 answers total)

Best answer: I found what looks to be their Japanese website. I checked on amazon.co.jp, searched for 兵左衛門 (the name of the company in Japanese) and found these which are eligible for international shipping. You can try just looking for the name of the company on amazon JP.

If amazon is not your thing, I found some on rakuten global under baseball chopsticks but I think kattobashi would work better as a search term. However, I am not sure if they come from that particular company.

If rakuten's not your thing, I think this is the official website, you could get a shipping company to forward them to you or buy them on your behalf. Tenso is OK.
posted by Ms. Moonlight at 11:18 AM on October 26, 2018 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: You are awesome, Ms. Moonlight. I found 4 different teams on Amazon at about $10 each. Shipping was $6. They'll be here next week. They'll make for some great presents.

(Future shoppers of Amazon.co.jp: you can set your language preference to auto-translated English. It worked perfectly.)
posted by AgentRocket at 11:53 AM on October 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

Fifteen minutes from question to answer is like one inning's worth of an MLB game. Well done, Ms. Moonlight!!
posted by wenestvedt at 12:59 PM on October 26, 2018 [2 favorites]