Our story
Jhoi Broom is the product of our family's journey to find the quintessential broom for our hardwood floor. Jhoi Broom is named to imitate the Vietnamese word for broom - “chổi” (pronounced JOI) and to represent the joy we hope our customers will have when using our brooms.
Generations of our family, from grandparents to our little one, enjoy walking and running around the house barefoot. There is a simple pleasure in being carefree and barefoot, feeling the smooth warm grains of the hardwood floor, the porous red terracotta bricks on the porch, the cracks in the weathered wood on the deck, and the smooth cold surface of ceramic tiles. All of these floor types need a broom that can sweep up even the tiniest speck of dirt to keep our feet clean and comfy.
But what is the ultimate broom? In the age of machinery and disposables, a hand broom offers a quick clean up solution that does not require batteries or electricity or contribute to landfills each time you clean. A good broom should be comfortable to use and effective at sweeping up dust and larger pieces of trash. The ultimate broom needs to be aesthetic, efficient, and leave as light of a ecological footprint as possible at the same time. Our search began in the US, where we encountered some Asian brooms but they were constructed from plastic and were not durable. So, we traveled to Vietnam and some other Asian countries to search for the ideal broom.
There are several types of grass brooms used in Vietnam and our favorite one is a particular kind of broom made of soft grass and vines. It is durable, soft, effective, and most important of all, ergonomic. These grass brooms can last for years of constant use and they adapt to the users‘ postures and habits. But the grass brooms commonly found in the markets, sadly, contain a lot of plastic and metal parts like the ones previously found in the US, and many of them would contribute to the landfills after the brooms are discarded.
During one of our trips to find a greener way to make these wonderful grass brooms, we stumbled across an old broom made of grass and vine, resting on the side of the wall, worn to the handle and yet held together. There was no sign of plastic or wire on the broom and it was beautiful. We asked local villagers and learned that it was an old design, which is still partially used in certain parts of Vietnam.
And there it is, this old hand tied broom became the design inspiration for Jhoi Broom, a natural ergonomic grass broom.
Working with artisans from different villages, we revived the old craft of hand tying a grass broom using only vine and grass. Our Jhoi Broom stays true to the old design in terms of materials and tying method but it is made in different sizes with a slight change in design to accommodate different needs.
To learn how to care for your Jhoi Broom, please visit our Care Tips page.
