Is This a Watch or a Dim Sum Steamer? Meet the New Yum Cha Collaboration

Close your eyes and think of the most comforting meal of your childhood. Was it loud? Was it chaotic? Was it surrounded by the people who loved you the most? For Watch Ho & Co founder Jackie Ho, that perfect memory is set in a bustling Hong Kong tea house, enveloped in dense clouds of white steam, the earthy scent of pu-erh tea, and the rhythmic clatter of porcelain teacups. It is a world where trolleys stacked high with bamboo steamers weave between packed tables, where tea flows without asking, and where time belongs entirely to the people around you. To celebrate its third anniversary, the brand has collaborated with Selten to capture this exact sensory heartbeat in a stunning new timepiece called Yum Cha (飲茶). To know about their previous collaboration with Watch Ho & Co click here. Forged from the earliest and happiest memories of a childhood spent alongside his grandparents, this incredible new watch proves that sometimes, the most complex mechanics are simply designed to touch the heart. Grab your teacup, because this one is a true masterpiece. 

The Story: A Tribute That Touches the Heart

The phrase Yum Cha literally translates to drinking tea, but in Hong Kong, it represents a cherished tradition of gathering at a tea house to eat Dim Sum, a word which wonderfully translates to touching the heart. This collaboration is a deeply personal love letter to Jackie Ho's grandparents, especially his grandmother, Por Por, who raised him in the bustling warmth of these tea houses. To a young boy, the chaotic environment was a safe haven filled with love, chattering elders, and the simple comfort of slow mornings. This timepiece honours those fleeting, irreplaceable moments of connection and the core memories that sustain us long after the seats at the table have emptied. 

A Dial Made of Memories and Dedication

The absolute star of the Yum Cha watch is its dial, designed to mimic the weave of a traditional bamboo steamer basket, which stands in Chinese culture as a symbol of strength, resilience, and quiet endurance. The creation process begins with Selten’s Master Qin spending eight hours working under a microscope to map a fine silver disc into approximately eighty individual rectangles. Using a razor-sharp tungsten graver, he carves over forty parallel lines per rectangle, totalling an estimated 3,500 individual bright-cuts per dial. Next comes seven hours of trial by fire, where highly transparent raw powder is meticulously applied by hand and fired at 800°C a minimum of eight times. A rigorous 1.5-hour hand-polishing process then coaxed the deep fired brown into the final Fumé Amber colour, displaying a radiant honey-gold in the center that deepens to a rich, smoky amber at the rim to evoke a steamer loved over many years. Diamond-cut frosted tea leaf hands sweep across this dial, drifting as gracefully as tea leaves floating in a steaming cup. Because every line, angle, and groove is cut purely by human hand, no two dials are the same, and it took twenty prototypes to perfect the process with a rejection rate still hovering above 40%. All told, it takes approximately 16.5 hours of craftsmanship for each surviving dial. 

A Caseback Designed for You

Turn the watch over, and the story comes full circle with a beautifully stamped solid caseback. It features an illustration, depicting the founder as a small boy looking across a bustling, steaming table at his grandparents. The playful artwork holds a beautiful symmetry to celebrate the club's third anniversary, featuring table number three, three Siu Mai, three teacups, and three pairs of chopsticks. You can fully personalize the traditional table number stand in the artwork by engraving up to three digits that hold a special milestone date or lucky number in your own story. The Lapis Sauté Mt. Fuji Edition also features an intricately engraved caseback, depicting the iconic silhouette of Mt. Fuji.

Technical Specifications

The watch boasts elegant dimensions, measuring 38 mm in diameter and 9.95 mm in thickness, or 8.35 mm without the crystal. It features a 44.5 mm lug-to-lug distance and a 20 mm lug width, all housed within a 316L High-Grade Stainless-Steel case. Protecting the stunning dial is a Top Hat Sapphire Crystal equipped with eight layers of inner and outer anti-reflective coating. Beating inside is a manual hand-wound Sellita SW200-2 M Power+ movement, which provides an impressive 65-hour power reserve, an accuracy adjusted to 5 positions, and water resistance up to 50 metres. The entire piece is secured to the wrist with a Has No Bounds hand-stitched tan color Italian nubuck leather strap, finished with a brushed 316L stainless steel pin buckle. 

While the Yum Cha watch is deeply rooted in the culinary soul of Hong Kong, its underlying message is a beautiful reminder that every culture has its own version of this gathering table. Whether it is over dumplings or Sunday roast, these are the spaces where guards are dropped, stories are handed down, and the people we love quietly remind us of who we are. This release honors the families we are born into, the friendships we choose, and the core memories that sustain us long after the seats have emptied. Above all, this timepiece is a tribute to the grandparents who loved and raised us, to the memories we still close our eyes to return to, and for the time given to us before we knew to treasure it. To know more about this brand and its founder, click here.

Price: Rs 4,71,489 Approx