What are the types of tea sets?
Oct 12, 2023
Adawe Store
A set of exquisite tea sets with famous teas with full color, aroma and taste can be said to complement each other. Paying attention to the art of the tea set itself is also one of the important manifestations of the ancient Chinese people's emphasis on the way of drinking tea. Therefore, in order to drink good tea, it is inseparable from the corresponding tea set.
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Bamboo and wood utensils were widely used for food and beverages when there was tea in ancient times. Therefore, bamboo and wood utensils should be regarded as the earliest type of tea utensils. After the tea set is standardized, bamboo and wood tea sets can often be seen. Most of the twenty-four tea sets listed by Lu Yu are made of bamboo and wood.
The raw materials of wooden tea sets are relatively easy to obtain and easy to make, which will not cause pollution to the tea leaves and no harm to the human body. However, the disadvantage is that the tea leaves cannot be stored for a long time, nor can they be used for a long time. In the Qing Dynasty, a kind of tea set made of bamboo appeared in Sichuan, mainly including tea cups, tea cups, tea saucers, tea trays and tea pots, etc. Most of them were made into a complete set. Bamboo woven tea sets are usually composed of inner tubes and coats. Most of the inner tubes are ceramic tea-drinking utensils. The coats are made of carefully selected bamboo. After multiple processes such as splitting, opening, kneading, and uniforming, they are made into soft and fine bamboo silk like hair. After baking, dyeing, and then weaving and fitting according to the size and shape of the inner tube of the tea set, making it a whole tea set. This bamboo woven tea set can not only protect the inner tube and reduce damage, but also is not easy to burn the hands after brewing the tea; at the same time, because of its harmonious color tone, natural and beautiful, it is also a rare craftsmanship, which is very valuable for artistic appreciation. Therefore, most people buy bamboo tea sets not for use, but mainly for collection and display.
Tea sets made of gold, silver, copper, tin and other metals were once a very important type of tea set in the development and evolution of tea sets.
Before the appearance of iron utensils, people's cooking utensils were mainly bronze utensils. At that time, the tea was boiled raw and boiled into soup, so a bronze cauldron must be used. Since the cost of making iron utensils is less than that of bronze, gold and silver utensils, and it is easy to popularize, iron utensils quickly entered people's daily life after they appeared. Therefore, iron utensils in tea sets have gradually increased, such as iron furnaces, kettles, and tripods, which are widely used.
In fact, there is no benefit to drinking tea with a metal tea set, especially the gold and silver tea set, which can only show the user's noble identity and status. With the deepening of people's research on tea art and understanding of tea properties, metal tea sets have been gradually abandoned. In the tea sets we use today, only a very small part is made of metal, such as tin tea pots.
Unlike ordinary pottery, the inside and outside of the purple sand tea set are not glazed, but are made of unique pottery clay, namely purple clay, red clay and Tuanshan clay. The finished product of the purple sand tea set is as purple as ripe grapes, as red as red maple leaves, as yellow as ripe oranges, and as magnificent as blooming ink chrysanthemums.
The sap is extracted from the natural lacquer tree for refining, and then mixed with the required pigments, and then painted on the utensils to make gorgeous lacquerware, which is an important invention of our ancestors. As an ancient traditional handicraft in my country, lacquerware has strong national characteristics in its shape, pattern and pattern. Although the lacquerware in ancient times was only plain lacquer, most of them were practical items, such as furniture in daily life.
In fact, lacquer tea sets can still be seen in modern tea sets. On the basis of inheriting the style of traditional tea sets, modern lacquerware tea sets have many innovations and are deeply loved by people. The more well-known ones are Beijing carved lacquer tea sets, Fuzhou bodiless tea sets, and bodiless lacquer ware produced in Poyang, Yichun and other places in Jiangxi. .
Enamel is made of iron as a raw material, and the inner and outer layers are coated with enamel and then fired at high temperature. Ancient Egypt is the origin of enamel, and later introduced to Europe. Cast iron enamel, which is widely used today, originated in Germany and Austria in the early 19th century.
In the early 20th century, enamel tea sets began to be mass-produced in my country. Enamelled tea sets are known for their sturdiness, durability, clear patterns, light weight, and resistance to corrosion. Among a variety of enamel tea sets, imitation porcelain tea cups are white, delicate and shiny, which can be compared with porcelain; mesh flower tea cups are decorated with mesh or color and mesh, and the layers are clear and have a strong artistic sense; butterfly-shaped The teacups and drum-shaped teacups are novel and unique in shape, light in weight and exquisite in workmanship; the colorful enamel tea trays can be used for placing teacups, teapots, etc. These distinctive enamel tea sets are deeply loved by the majority of tea people. However, the enamel tea set is easy to be scalded due to the rapid heat transfer, and when placed on the coffee table, the tabletop will be scalded, so there are certain limitations when using it, and it is usually not used to entertain guests.
Glass is a colored, translucent and impermeable mineral, which the ancients called "flowing glass" or "colored glass". It has very strong plasticity, and the tea set made from it has various shapes, bright colors and dazzling brilliance.
The ancient Babylonians first researched the recipe for making glass, which has a history of about 4,500 years. During the Han Dynasty, the technology of making glass was introduced to China by sea and the Silk Road. In the Tang Dynasty, China also began to process glaze. In the underground palace of Famen Temple in Fufeng, Shaanxi, the plain-faced circle-footed light-yellow glass teacup and plain-faced light-yellow glass saucer enshrined by Tang Xinzong were unearthed. They are authentic Chinese colored glass tea sets. Although its shape is relatively primitive, its decoration is simple, its texture is slightly turbid, and its transparency is not high, it was a precious thing at that time. At the same time, it also shows that the Chinese glazed tea set is made in China.
Among the many glass tea sets, the most common glass tea set is the tea cup. Use a teacup to brew tea, the color of the tea soup, the appearance of the tea leaves, and the ups and downs of the tea leaves during brewing are all at a glance. Therefore, it is very valuable to brew all kinds of delicate and famous tea leaves in glass cups.
However, glass tea cups are brittle, easily broken, and heat up quickly, so you need to be careful when handling them. In addition, glass tea cups are not breathable and have poor thermal insulation, and the aroma of the tea is easy to lose. Therefore, it is best to drink the tea brewed from the tea cup as soon as possible.