Knowledge of various tea sets
As early as the 18th century BC to 221 BC, 1,500 years before Qin Shihuang unified China, bronze ware was widely used. Our ancestors used bronze to make plates for water, jugs and jars for wine. These bronze utensils can naturally be used to hold tea.
From the Qin and Han Dynasties to the Six Dynasties, tea as a beverage has gradually become a fashion, and tea sets have gradually separated from being shared with other drinking utensils. Around the Southern and Northern Dynasties, gold and silver utensils including tea drinking utensils began to appear in my country.
During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the production of gold and silver utensils reached its peak. But starting from the Song Dynasty, the ancients had mixed opinions on metal tea sets. Since the Ming Dynasty, with the innovation of tea, the change of tea drinking methods, and the rise of ceramic tea sets, metal tea sets including silver utensils have gradually disappeared, especially tea sets made of metals such as tin, iron, and lead. Using them to boil water and make tea is believed to make the tea taste distorted, so few people use them.
However, metal tea storage utensils, such as tin bottles and tin cans, are very useful. This is because metal tea storage utensils are more airtight than paper, bamboo, wood, porcelain, pottery, etc., and have better moisture-proof and light-proof properties, which is more conducive to the preservation of loose tea.
2. Porcelain tea sets: celadon and white porcelain
There are many kinds of porcelain tea sets, among which the more common ones are: celadon tea sets, white porcelain tea sets, black porcelain tea sets and colored porcelain tea sets.
1) Celadon tea sets
As early as the Eastern Han Dynasty, the production of pure, transparent and luminous celadon began. In the Jin Dynasty, Yue Kiln, Wu Kiln and Ou Kiln in Zhejiang Province had already reached a considerable scale. In the Song Dynasty, the celadon tea sets produced by Zhejiang Longquan Ge Kiln, one of the five famous kilns at that time, had reached their peak and were sold all over the country. In the Ming Dynasty, celadon tea sets were famous both at home and abroad for their delicate texture, dignified shape, green glaze, and elegant patterns.
Modernly, Zhejiang Longquan celadon tea sets have made new developments, and new products are constantly coming out. In addition to the many advantages of porcelain tea sets, this kind of tea set is more beneficial to the beauty of the tea soup because of its verdant color. However, using it to brew black tea, white tea, yellow tea, and black tea will easily make the tea soup lose its original appearance, which is slightly insufficient.
2) White porcelain tea set
White porcelain has the characteristics of dense and transparent body, high glaze and pottery firing, no water absorption, clear sound and long rhyme. Because of its white color, it can reflect the color of the tea soup, has moderate heat transfer and heat preservation performance, and is colorful and has different shapes. It can be called a treasure among tea drinking utensils.
As early as the Tang Dynasty, white porcelain utensils produced by Xing Kiln in Hebei Province were already popular in every household. Bai Juyi of the Tang Dynasty also wrote a poem praising the white porcelain tea bowls produced in Dayi, Sichuan. In the Yuan Dynasty, white porcelain tea sets from Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province were exported to foreign countries.
Today, white porcelain tea sets have a brand new look. Its material is suitable for brewing all kinds of tea. In addition, white porcelain tea sets are exquisitely shaped and elegantly decorated. The outer walls are often painted with mountains, rivers, flowers and plants of the four seasons, birds and beasts, stories of people, or decorated with celebrity calligraphy. They are also of great artistic appreciation value and have a wide range of uses.
3) Black porcelain tea sets
Since the Song Dynasty, the method of drinking tea has gradually changed from the brewing method in the Tang Dynasty to the tea-making method. In addition, the popular tea-fighting in the Song Dynasty created conditions for the rise of black porcelain tea sets.
Black porcelain tea sets can well reflect the quality of tea-making skills, just as Zhu Mu of the Song Dynasty said in "Fang Yu Sheng Lan": "White tea, put into black cups, its marks are easy to detect." Therefore, black porcelain tea cups in the Song Dynasty became the largest variety of porcelain tea sets.
Fujian Jian Kiln, Jiangxi Jizhou Kiln, Shanxi Yuci Kiln, etc., all produced a large number of black porcelain tea sets, becoming the main production areas of black porcelain tea sets. The black porcelain Jian tea cup has a unique formula. During the firing process, the glaze surface presents rabbit hair stripes, partridge spots, and sun spots. Once the tea soup enters the cup, it can radiate colorful dots of light, which increases the interest of tea fighting. Since the Ming Dynasty, due to the different methods of brewing tea from the Song Dynasty, black porcelain Jian tea cups seem to be unsuitable for use, and are only used as a reserve.
4) Colored porcelain tea sets
There are many varieties and colors of colored tea sets, among which blue and white porcelain tea sets are the most eye-catching. Its characteristics are that the blue and white patterns complement each other, which is pleasing to the eye; the colors are elegant and pleasant, and they are gorgeous but not gaudy. In addition, the glaze on the color material makes it appear moist and bright, which adds to the charm of blue and white tea sets.
It was not until the middle and late Yuan Dynasty that blue and white porcelain tea sets began to be mass-produced, especially Jingdezhen, which became the main production site of blue and white porcelain tea sets in my country. Due to the high level of painting technology of blue and white porcelain tea sets, especially the application of traditional Chinese painting techniques on porcelain, this can also be said to be a major achievement of Yuan Dynasty painting.
In the Ming Dynasty, the blue and white porcelain tea sets produced in Jingdezhen, such as teapots, teacups, and tea cups, had more and more varieties of colors and colors, and the quality was getting better and better. Whether it was the shape, modeling, or decoration, they were the best in the country, and became the object of imitation by other kilns producing blue and white tea sets. In the Qing Dynasty, especially during the Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong periods, blue and white porcelain tea sets entered a historical peak in the history of ancient ceramics development, surpassing the previous dynasties and influencing future generations. The blue and white porcelain utensils fired during the reign of Emperor Kangxi are the best in the Qing Dynasty.
Overall, during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the improvement of porcelain-making technology, social and economic development, the expansion of foreign exports, and the change in tea drinking methods all led to the rapid development of blue and white tea sets. At that time, in addition to Jingdezhen, other influential places included Ji'an and Leping in Jiangxi, Chaozhou, Jieyang, and Boluo in Guangdong, Yuxi in Yunnan, Huili in Sichuan, and Dehua and Anxi in Fujian. In addition, there are many places in the country that produce local blue and white tea sets, which are used by the people for tea drinking in certain areas.