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Best of Kathmandu; search or filter for all 13
Bhaktapur / Kathmandu Valley workshops
Lokta is handmade paper from the bark of the Himalayan Daphne shrub — naturally insect-resistant, used for centuries for official records and Buddhist texts.
Best for Authentic lokta paper journals, cards, gift wrap
Palpa/Kathmandu, Nepal
DIMAICHA is designed in Copenhagen and ethically handmade in Nepal, with hemp clothing and upcycled sari accessories naturally dyed by Nepalese women in a small village near the Kathmandu valley. Its products include hemp shirts and shorts with coconut buttons and handwoven bags made from upcycled fabric.
Best for Naturally dyed hemp clothing
Pushpalal Path, Kathmandu
Felt and Yarn is a women-led workshop employing roughly 500 artisans across Nepal, felting pure New Zealand wool into balls, garlands, and home décor under ISO, GoodWeave, and Sedex certification. The Kathmandu-based operation says its supply chain supports more than 10,000 families.
Best for Handmade wool felt décor
Thamel, Kathmandu
On Dabali Marg in Thamel, Healing Singing Bowls works with master artisan Santa Ratna Shakya to hand-hammer seven-metal bowls, gongs, and tingshas using techniques passed down through Newari metalworking families. The family-run workshop shapes each bowl by striking it hundreds of times rather than casting it in a mold.
Best for Hand-hammered seven-metal singing bowls
Kathmandu
Himalayan Hemp sources its fiber from remote western districts such as Darchula, Bajura, and Rolpa, where farmers have grown and hand-spun hemp at elevations up to 3,500 meters for centuries. Every textile is made by hand in Nepal, keeping the weaving within the highland communities that cultivate the plant.
Best for Handwoven Himalayan hemp textiles
Kathmandu / Nepal
Lovely Incense was founded by Dipendra Dangol roughly twenty-five years ago in Thamel, Kathmandu's tourist quarter, where he began selling a limited range of traditional Tibetan incense to visitors.
Best for Handmade Nepalese and Tibetan-style incense from a Thamel-founded house with its own factory
Lovely Incense was founded by Dipendra Dangol roughly twenty-five years ago in Thamel, Kathmandu's tourist quarter, where he began selling a limited range of traditional Tibetan incense to visitors. Within two years he saw enough demand to build a dedicated production factory covering both Nepalese and Tibetan incense styles, moving from a single storefront into manufacturing.
The company positions itself as Nepal's only sustainable incense brand, sourcing ingredients responsibly and combining long-standing Himalayan incense-making methods with more deliberate eco-friendly practices in how materials are gathered and processed. Alongside the fragrance business, Dangol has built the factory around local employment, particularly for women in the Kathmandu Valley, framing the incense trade as a livelihood project as much as a craft one.
From its start as a small tourist-facing stall in Thamel, Lovely Incense's move into its own production facility marks a trajectory shared by several Kathmandu Valley incense makers: a shop built to serve foreign visitors that grew, once demand proved durable, into a manufacturer supplying both the Nepalese and Tibetan incense traditions the Kathmandu Valley has long been known for.
Kathmandu (sourcing from Ilam)
Nepal Tea Collective, founded in 2016 from a family project begun in the 1960s, buys organic single-origin tea directly from Ilam smallholders and shares 1% of revenue back with farmers as a Public Benefit Corporation.
Best for Nepal Tea Collective, founded in 2016 from a family project begun
Nepal Tea Collective grew out of a project its founders' father began in the 1960s, working to lift villages around Ilam out of poverty through sustainable tea farming; the company itself was formally established in 2016 to carry that mission forward as a direct-trade business. It buys organic, single-origin loose-leaf tea straight from smallholder growers around Ilam - long recognized as Nepal's tea-growing center - cutting out intermediary traders, and runs a "Tip the Farmer" program that has moved $3,985 in additional payments to 81 farmers through a 1%-of-revenue share. The company reports a 48.07% increase in partner farmer income since it began operating, and in 2023 restructured as a Public Benefit Corporation while pursuing formal B Corp certification, formalizing accountability commitments that had previously been informal. Beyond the tea itself - award-recognized lines like Organic White Prakash, Organic Kumari Gold and Organic Kathmandu Cosmos - the business runs three arms: wholesale supply, direct-to-consumer sales, and a tourism program it calls Tea as a Service, bringing visitors into the growing regions themselves. It also funds a tea-sapling reforestation effort and, through the affiliated Nepal Tea Foundation, scholarships and women's empowerment programs in the growing communities. Coverage in Forbes, The New York Times and the BBC has followed the same throughline: a Kathmandu-based company built explicitly around what its direct trade actually returns to the farmers it sources from.
Kathmandu / Nepal
Registered in Nepal as Nepali Khukuri (Kukri) House Private Limited (Company Register No. 17479/058/59), Nepalese Khukuri House manufactures and sells military-pattern, working, ceremonial and historical-reproduction khukuris from Kathmandu.
Best for Traditional and military-pattern khukuris from an independently registered Kathmandu manufacturer
Nepalese Khukuri House is a khukuri (traditional curved Nepali blade) manufacturer and wholesaler registered in Nepal as 'Nepali Khukuri (kukri) House Private Limited' (Company Register No. 17479/058/59), with a Kathmandu showroom in Thamel and a US-side contact operation through Joshi Merchants LLC. This is a distinct, separately incorporated company from the already-listed Khukuri House Handicraft Industry (KHHI) — the two operate under similarly worded names but different registrations, different addresses (KHHI's workshop is at Patan Industrial Estate, Lalitpur, versus Nepalese Khukuri House's Thamel, Kathmandu location), and no evidence of common ownership was found.
The company manufactures and sells khukuris across a wide range of styles: military-pattern blades modeled on Nepal Army and Police issue, hunting and village working knives, ceremonial and religious khukuris, and historical reproductions including WWII-era Gurkha patterns. Its site shows active, dated product listings and functioning e-commerce across multiple khukuri categories, consistent with an operating manufacturer rather than a dormant listing.
The khukuri is Nepal's defining edged-tool tradition, forged by Kami blacksmiths historically serving Gurkha regiments, and Kathmandu's Thamel and Patan districts both host multiple independently run khukuri workshops and showrooms — Nepalese Khukuri House being one of several genuine, differently incorporated houses in that trade rather than a rebrand of an already-listed one.
Tara Marg, Kathmandu
Prasid Cashmere has run its Tara Marg showroom since 1999, working exclusively with certified Chyangra Pashmina shorn from Himalayan mountain goats. Weavers hand-finish each shawl and wrap on the premises, a process visible from the shop floor.
Best for Handwoven Chyangra pashmina shawls
Boudhanath, Kathmandu
Rincheling Gallery sits directly across from the Boudha Stupa, where owner Tashi Lama's painters hand-render Buddhas, deities, and mandalas using traditional mineral pigments and Vajrayana iconography. Each composition follows the strict proportional grids passed down through generations of thangka masters.
Best for Thangka scrolls near Boudha Stupa
Kathmandu, Nepal
Nepal's largest handmade felt products manufacturer, using 100% natural wool from New Zealand that is hand-carded, soap-cleaned and needle-felted with azo-free dyes by women artisans in Kathmandu. ISO 9001:2015 certified, making felt toys, dryer balls and home decor for export.
Best for Handmade wool felt toys and decor
Kathmandu Valley
Termatree's statues are cast and consecrated in the Kathmandu Valley by artisans from the Vajracharya and Shakya castes, the Newari lineages historically responsible for the valley's sacred bronze and copper work. Each finished piece undergoes a consecration ritual before it leaves the workshop.
Best for Hand-cast consecrated Buddhist statues
Boudhanath, Kathmandu
Tsering Art School has trained thangka painters in the Karma Gadri lineage since 1996, when Shechen Rabjam Rinpoche founded it in Boudhanath under the Dilgo Khyentse Fellowship. Students complete a six-year course before their finished scrolls are sold to support Shechen Monastery's cultural preservation work.
Best for Hand-painted Karma Gadri thangka scrolls
Neighbourhood walks
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