Zen Tenkara rods are designed locally and manufactured for us overseas. A number of years ago we did attempt move manufacturing State side. We spent about 4 years rolling blanks in the US and struggled to “get it right”. It is such a different process then regular flyrods and even expert rod manufacturers – big names – were challenged. We finally produced a workable blank and were extremely close to a finished product so were able to run numbers. We were so far out of the league and the costs so high, we abandoned the American Rod Project.
It was a personal passion project and hard to walk away from. A lot of money was invested but the market wouldn’t have supported it then or now.