this is almost entirely alibaba or etsy-by-way-of-alibaba stuff except for the lil frog guy tea pet, who is an etsy exclusive.
this is a gong fu style tea set, more popularly romanized as kung fu, but i think most people understand at this point it simply means to do something with skill and diligence. the idea behind this method of tea brewing is less to drink tea, and more to taste it, familiarize yourself with the leaves, come to know the plant, evaluate the energy the drink gives you, and get lost in the experience of drinking tea. i don't break out this set often because it's a lot of little pieces, but it makes a great performance piece if you can talk about the history of tea in china, or the history of your leaf, or speak on the region the tea or the teaware comes from, or the preparation style of teas, etc etc. it's something of a performance, at least when i do it for other people. i like it
so i got a rather large tea tray. what is a tea tray and what is it for, you might be wondering? it's basically a wooden box with a grill and a reservoir underneath so you can pour tea without worry of splash or drip on the surface beneath you. these can be made of metal, wood, plastic or stone, basically any material that can reasonably withstand getting a little wet or storing liquid. mine's made of bamboo
on it rests a sort of thin-walled, small gaiwan (~120ml capacity iirc) with equally thin-walled, small cups. a gaiwan is the oldest chinese tea brewing vessel. back when people first started drinking steeped tea leaves as a beverage in a format that resembles matcha, this is what they were drinking out of, and it remains a favorite of millions to this very day.
i got this gaiwan and cup set because i like the way they look, and i also tend to want to have a white inner cup so everyone can look at the color of the tea as i'm serving it/as it steeps. but this stuff is both too small for me and also doesn't retain heat as much as i'd like, so i might start looking for something more robust soon.
in the upper corner there you see the gong dao bei a.k.a. the justice cup, the fairness cup, the equity cup. in this case it's a small glass pitcher with a handle for pouring, and a strainer on top. the purpose of this is to make sure everyone's cup tastes the same, as even one second of differing steeping time will result in subtly different cups. this, like many techniques found in gongfu tea brewing, is a taiwanese convention. very nice stuff
next we have the strainer itself and the hand sculpture meant to hold it. it catches the strainer's drips! it's really nice.
and finally, last but not least, we have the lil tea pet frog guy. he's just chillin. i love him. one day he will develop a mighty teaborne patina.
well, that's all i have for now. please look forward to the next tea post!!
