Culture

Tea Wares

In China, people find that tea wares can not only improve tea quality but also is a kind of art. Meanwhile, Chinese people think that different teas should be drunk by using specific tea wares to fully show their distinctive characteristics and quality. For example, green tea prefers glass tea ware, porcelain ware for scented tea, while Oolong tea performs best in purple clay tea ware.

Tea wares also named tea sets mainly refer to teapots, tea cups, tea bowls, tea trays and other utensils used for drinking tea nowadays. The unglazed earthenware, used in Yunnan and Sichuan provinces for baking tea today, reminds us the earliest utensils used in ancient China. 

A teapot is a kind of bottle, large at the bottom and tapered toward the top. It is used for infusing teas. Sand pot is considered as the best, because it doesn't absorb the fragrance of the tea or destroy the tea color. Tea bowls and cups are used to drink teas. Chinese people began to pay attention to the matching of the color of the tea cups and the tea since the Song Dynasty (960-1279). For instance, they use black cups to drink white tea to better present the color and fragrance. A tea tray is a dish used to hold the tea cups. It originated in the Southern Dynasties (420-589), and became popular in the Tang Dynasty (618-907).

Tea wares in China are made of various materials, including metal, porcelain, pottery, purple clay, lacquer, wood, bamboo and glass. Tea wares made of metals were served for noblesse and civilians commonly used porcelain ware and earthenware in the Tang Dynasty. In the Song Dynasty glazed tea bowls of various colors were used commonly, while porcelain tea wares predominated in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368).

Metal tea wares, made of gold, silver, bronze, iron and tin, appeared earliest and existed for a long period of time in Chinese people's lives. Meanwhile, they and can prevent damp. However, the original tea tastes will be easily destroyed if making tea in metal wares. As a result, metal tea wares gradually disappeared along with the rise of the porcelain and pottery wares. Pottery, porcelain, purple clay and lacquer tea wares are always popularly used since their introduction because of their charming appearance and special properties.

Tea wares made of wood and bamboo are usually used for collections and displays. With the bamboo woven tea wares of Sichuan Province as an example, bamboo tea wares are made up of inner bodies and outer bodies. The inner bodies are mostly porcelain and pottery tea wares, based on which outer bamboo bodies are made to protect and perfect the inner bodies. Meanwhile, the tea wares will be not too hot to touch with the outer bamboo bodies.

In modern times, glass utensils are warmly welcomed because of its transparent texture and dazzling luster. Making tea in a glass cup, you can clearly see the real color of the tea water and the softness of the tea leaves. But, glass tea cups break easily, and they are often too hot to touch.