Cold Brew bottles, Song Dynasty-inspired handled pots, hand-held cups, whisky old-fashioned glasses, glass tea bowls, straight cylinder highball glasses, pokal glasses, canned tea in pull-tabs… Today, the presentation of tea has undergone many new transformations. Innovative New Chinese Tea ware combines traditional Tea culture with contemporary artistic elements, offering a wide variety and inclusiveness. Ceramic, purple clay, glass, and metal tea wares each display their uniqueness. While inheriting and promoting traditional culture, New Chinese tea ware not only serves practical functions but also possesses artistic value for appreciation.

The extension of New Chinese tea ware broadens the cultural expression of tea drinking. The inspiration for these utensils comes from international choices, ranging from classic national treasures to international utensils, each with its own history and design sense. The combination of Chinese and foreign, ancient and modern vessels fosters a disruptive expression of contemporary tea-drinking appreciation art, presenting a more sophisticated aesthetic experience.

Lift-handle Pot

The lift-handle pot is an integral part of Chinese tea culture and a core element of new-style tea spaces. Typically made of ceramic or purple clay, the pot is short and flat, with a round or oval shape. It has a small spout and a distinctive lift-handle above the lid, positioned higher to allow for easy lifting and pouring of tea.

The lift-handle pot has good heat retention properties. Many new-style tea spaces often use a candle stand as a warming container, suitable for brewing aged white tea, tangerine Peel, and dark tea, ensuring that the taste and aroma of the tea are preserved to the fullest extent. A pot of tea accompanied by some tea snacks can start a delightful moment of solo tea drinking.

Han and Tang Dynasties Earthenware Kettle for Tea Brewing

“Kettle” was an ancient cooking utensil, and the earthenware kettle was a type of cooking vessel made of clay. During the Tang Dynasty, the practice of boiling tea was popular, with people accustomed to grinding tea cakes into powder and boiling them in a tea kettle, adding various seasonings of their choice. The “kettle” was an important piece of tea ware used for boiling tea during the Tang Dynasty. The three-legged Tang earthenware kettle is characterized by a narrow mouth, a constricted neck, a bulging belly, and a rounded bottom, with two ears standing along the rim, supported by three legs. Kettles were made from a variety of materials, including clay, porcelain, iron, stone, and bronze.

New-style tea spaces have revived the charcoal-heated tea brewing of China's Tang Dynasty, performing the traditional Chinese tea culture through special utensils, which helps more young people fall in love with fine Chinese tea.

Song Dynasty-Inspired Handled Pot

Handled pots, known as “zhu zi” or “zhu hu” during the Tang Dynasty, were a common type of wine vessel during the Tang and Song dynasties. After undergoing improvements during the Song and Yuan dynasties, they have been in continuous use up to the present day. Due to differing aesthetics across dynasties, the popular styles of handled pots varied in different eras. In the Tang Dynasty, handled pots were used as wine vessels, with large bellies, trumpet mouths, and short spouts, with the center of gravity located at the lower part. Later, the body became slimmer and longer, with the center of gravity raised. During the Five Dynasties to the Song Dynasty, the bodies were often gourd-shaped, often used together with a wine bowl. During the Song Dynasty, the popularity of tea competitions led to the widespread use of handled pots for tea preparation.

Starting from the Yuan Dynasty, the bodies of handled pots resembled Yuhu Chun vases, with curved and slender spouts, produced in Jingdezhen kilns and Longquan kilns. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, there were not many changes in form, and handled pots began to appear in materials such as jade, cloisonné enamel, gold, and silver. Nowadays, new-style tea spaces have replaced the material of handled pots with transparent glass bottles, which are heat-resistant and cold-resistant. The slim and upright body allows for the observation of the graceful appearance of tea leaves in water, with smooth and powerful pouring and a clean break in the flow. The act of lifting the pot and pouring is light yet graceful.

Wine-Style Tea Utensils, New Era Cold Brew Tea Ware

Since the Han and Jin dynasties, literati composed poetry praising the virtues of wine, especially during the Tang Dynasty, turning drinking into an “elegant path,” and wine utensils became elegant tools. “Tea inspires prose and wine inspires poetry.” Wine can evoke sentiment and create an atmosphere conducive to aesthetic appreciation. In today's new-style tea spaces, using wine utensils to serve tea aims to borrow the aesthetic elements of the drinking environment to enhance the atmosphere and add value to the tea. The design of wine-style tea utensils not only draws on elements of traditional Chinese wine utensils but also incorporates the fashion of foreign drinking utensils, such as the addition of red wine goblet elements, cocktail glass elements, and German wheat beer glass elements.

The emergence of new era cold brew tea ware has become the highlight of new-style tea spaces, piquing the curiosity of tea enthusiasts. The cold brew tea ware, resembling a laboratory setting, is made of glass and has a high aesthetic value. In summer, when customers watch the ice drip slowly extract the substances from the tea, infusing it with a refreshing and sweet flavor, the entire tea space becomes a delight to the senses.