Why we still fold every dumpling by hand

People ask us all the time why we do not just buy a dumpling machine. They exist, they are fast, and they are honestly not bad. We tried one early on. We gave it back after a week.

A hand fold does something a machine cannot. The pleats are not decoration. They are how you seal the soup in without trapping too much air, and how you set the thickness of the skin so it holds during the steam but still gives way in your mouth.

Our folders aim for eighteen pleats. Not because eighteen is magic, but because it is the number where the skin, the filling, and the soup come out balanced. New folders start at eight or nine and get there over a few weeks.

So no machine. Just a lot of hands, a lot of mornings, and a standard we are not willing to move.