The Edo Broom I Bought When My Daughter Was a Baby – The Wabi Sabi Shop

My daughter is almost 22 now. The broom I bought when she was a baby is still in daily use.

This is not a metaphor for anything. It is simply what happened with this broom.

When she was an infant and napping, I needed to be able to sweep without waking her. A vacuum cleaner was out of the question — the noise would end the nap immediately. I started looking for something lightweight, quiet, and good enough to actually use every day. That search led me to Shirokiya Denbei, a Tokyo workshop that has been making Edo brooms since 1830. I bought one. I did not expect it to still be with us two decades later.

What an Edo broom is

江戸箒, Edo bōki, are brooms made using a technique developed in the Edo period — each natural broomcorn stalk is finely split by hand, creating soft, flexible bristles from a single stem rather than cutting or synthetic processes. The result is a broom with an unusual quality: it becomes softer and better with age rather than gradually worse. The bristles conform to your floors. The broom adapts to you.

Shirokiya Denbei has been making them in Tokyo for nearly two centuries. Satoru Nakamura, the seventh generation head of the workshop, maintains the same principles his predecessors worked by: natural materials used with no unnecessary waste, no electricity in production, nothing synthetic. The brooms are biodegradable from beginning to end.

Shirokiya Denbei Edo broom — still in use after more than twenty years

What twenty years of use looks like

We have moved several times since I bought this broom. Each time, it came with us. Not out of sentimentality — it simply continued to be the best broom in the house.

It works on tatami, on hardwood, on rugs, on the mix of surfaces that most homes actually have. It is light enough to use one-handed, quiet enough to use at any hour, and requires nothing beyond an occasional gentle tap to release accumulated dust. There is no filter to replace, no battery to charge, no component that wears out independently of the rest.

Edo broom detail — fine split bristles, handcrafted in Tokyo

I did not buy it expecting it to last this long. I bought it to sweep quietly while a baby slept. That it is still with us, still working, is simply what a well-made object does when it is made properly.

My daughter has no memory of being that baby. But she knows the broom.

→ Shirokiya Denbei Edo Brooms & Harimi Dustpans