Watch Ho & Co and Selten Serve Up a 38mm Yum Cha Watch

Watch Ho & Co and Selten have a habit of making collaborations feel personal rather than merely branded.

Their latest project, the Yum Cha, leans into Hong Kong tea-house culture with unusual warmth, translating bamboo steamers, dim sum table rituals and childhood memory into a 38mm stainless steel watch.

Limited to 100 pieces, it’s a compact hand-wound piece with a notably intricate enamel dial and a presentation set that’s clearly been considered beyond the watch itself.

At a glance

A bamboo steamer translated into enamel

The dial is the centre of the Yum Cha, both visually and conceptually.

Its pattern takes its cue from the latticework of the bamboo steamer baskets found on dim sum tables across Hong Kong, but the execution is far more demanding than the familiar object might suggest.

Each dial begins as a fine silver blank before being hand-engraved by Selten’s master engraver and enamel specialist, Qin.

The surface is divided into roughly 80 sections, each filled with bright-polished cuts whose direction and depth vary to create the impression of woven bamboo.

Multiple layers of transparent Grand Feu enamel are then applied and fired one by one at about 800°C.

The dial requires at least eight firings, followed by hand-polishing, with around 16.5 hours invested in each piece and a rejection rate above 40 percent.

The finished colour is called Fumé Amber, shifting from a honey-gold centre to smoky brown at the edge.

In changing light, the engraved cuts move between sharp reflections and darker recesses, giving the dial a lived-in quality that suits the tea-house theme.

Tea leaf-shaped hands complete the composition without crowding the dial.

A caseback with a family story

The Yum Cha is built around a 38mm stainless steel case, a size that suits the intimate character of the project.

At 9.95mm thick, or 8.35mm without the box-shaped sapphire crystal, it should sit comfortably as a modern dress-adjacent piece rather than a decorative object kept at arm’s length.

The solid caseback carries a custom illustration by @onehourwatch showing Watch Ho & Co founder Jackie Ho as a child sharing a Yum Cha meal with his grandparents.

There’s also a small personalised touch for collectors, who can engrave a meaningful number of their choice on the illustrated restaurant table marker.

The watch is rated to 50 metres of water resistance and uses a sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating.

A hand-wound movement and carefully themed packaging

Inside is the manually wound Sellita SW210-2 M Power+, adjusted in five positions.

The extended 65-hour power reserve gives the watch more practicality than many hand-wound pieces in this style, while the stated accuracy is approximately ±6 seconds per day.

The watch is paired with a tan Italian nubuck leather strap handmade by HasNoBounds and fitted with a steel pin buckle.

The presentation continues the dim sum idea with a handcrafted bamboo steamer basket, three bamboo coasters and a warranty card designed after the red order cards used in Hong Kong tea houses.

It’s the sort of packaging that can easily feel like theatre, but here it fits the watch’s central idea rather than sitting beside it as decoration.

Details & Specifications

The Yum Cha will likely appeal most to collectors who value cultural specificity and handcraft over loud design signals.

It’s a watch built from a deeply local memory, yet the result is accessible in its proportions, technically respectable and distinctive enough to stand apart from the usual run of small-batch collaborations.