My wife and I just announced our 2nd drop with Average Sunday, the creative project we started in the summer to bring our web3-native decentralized brand to life. We’ve partnered with Vancouver’s O5 Tea, a rare tea bar that micro-milled a limited edition matcha for this collab. If you like excellent matcha, you can buy the O5 Tea x Average Sunday: Sunday Matcha here.

gm gm. I was inspired by fellow Azuki community member Insight by an incredibly thoughtful review and recap of Azuki’s history from pre-mint to today. If you haven’t read his substack post or on the redbeancoffee blog - it is well worth the read. Before I go into my own thoughts about Azuki, this is a perfect example of the kind of intellect and care that community members contribute to both helping the core team improve their own process & mission and to expand the Azuki narrative outside the bounds of the highly engaged but niche community. I’ll endeavour to build on Insight’s post and add some of my own thoughts and nuance to this decentralized brand we’re building.

Oof. I hit the ground hard, disturbing the dust in a cloud around me as the portal drops me from three feet in the air. I look around and I’m alone on a dirt road. The river next to the portal in the spirit realm is several hundred meters from where I’m standing now and the hills forming its valley look very similar. Instinctively, my hand shoots up in front of my face so I can look at my arm - still translucent. I sigh, then start walking. While I have no idea where I would go if I’m successful with this mystery quest, that bean-shaped spirit sure made it sound like an unpleasant option if I were to forever be marooned in that in-between world. I head north-east towards Murodo.

Pain. Dull, throbbing pain pounding in my temples. I raise my hand to my face and press against the opposing force that feels like it’s about to rip through my skull. And then it’s gone - a memory, a dream, something from another time. I’m kneeling now and brace myself to stand. As I gaze downwards, I see my hand, my forearm, extending from my yukata, only it isn’t my hand, or what I remember it to be, it has this blue glow, translucent and cold - as though I could reach through it, but of course I can’t.