In leisurely moments, quietly brewing a pot of fragrant tea and savoring it is such a delightful thing. In fact, the taste of tea leaves is not only related to their own quality but also greatly influenced by the tea set used. So, how should beginners choose tea sets?

1. Water Preparation Tools

As the saying goes, water is the mother of tea; without water, there is no tea. Therefore, preparing water is a necessary step for all tea drinking.

Generally, for ordinary household use, considering convenience and safety, it's best not to choose open flame boiling (except for gas stoves, of course). The widespread use of electric kettles can really solve the problems for most people.

If there is a suitable water source at home, you can consider a single-function electric kettle. But if using bottled water, you can choose an electric kettle with water-filling function.

2. Tea Tray

The choice of tea tray involves many factors such as space size, budget, environment, etc. As one of the important elements of the tea table, there is really a lot of room for trade-offs.

Generally, tea trays can be divided into the following three types by material:

a. Bamboo/Wood Tea Trays. The weather in the north is dry. If left unused for a long time, bamboo/wood tea trays are prone to cracking. Therefore, if you are in the north and don't drink tea very frequently, choose bamboo/wood tea trays with caution.

b. Inkstone Tea Trays. The current inkstone market is quite chaotic, with good and bad mixed. So, be careful when purchasing. However, if you find an inkstone tea tray that you like and the price is acceptable, it's fine to buy it. Just don't always think about its appreciation value. As a practical utensil, it's quite good. But the problem with this thing is that it is too hard. If you are not careful, it can easily chip the teacups and teapots placed on it, so attention is needed during use.

c. Bakelite Tea Trays. Bakelite tea trays are now used more frequently; they are a type of phenolic plastic. Before buying, you can pour hot water on it and smell it. If there is a pungent smell, don't buy it.

3. Tea Brewing Utensils

Generally, there are basically three things used for brewing tea: Yixing clay teapots, lidded bowls (Gaiwan), and glass cups.

a. Yixing Clay Teapot: Its characteristic is that it is convenient to use, but it's best to dedicate one pot to one type of tea.

b. Lidded Bowl (Gaiwan): The lidded bowl has a wide range of applications, suitable for any tea, without worrying about flavor mixing. However, using it requires some skill (because it can easily burn hands if not used properly). If you want good cost performance, Fujian Dehua porcelain lidded bowls are highly recommended. The white porcelain from Dehua is brightly white. If you want to find Dehua porcelain items on Taobao, just filter for the Quanzhou, Fujian area; most are Dehua porcelain.

c. Glass Cup: Basically used for brewing green tea or other relatively tender teas.

In summary, you can choose the appropriate utensil based on your brewing ability and the type of tea.

4. Tea Serving Utensils

Fairness Cup (Gongdao Bei): Why use a fairness cup to serve tea? Mainly because when brewing tea, the tea soup may have uneven concentration due to varying degrees of contact with the tea leaves. So, if poured directly from the brewer into the drinking cups, some might get stronger tea, others lighter. The fairness cup solves this problem.

Like other tea sets, fairness cups come in different materials, but I think a glass fairness cup is already good enough, inexpensive and convenient for observing the color of the tea soup.

Adding a filter net mainly avoids fine tea debris entering the fairness cup. If you are particular about taste, consider a non-metal filter net.

5. Teacups

The key points for teacups are that the size should be suitable, the thickness should be suitable, and the weight should be suitable. It's really hard to describe in words what counts as suitable, as everyone's feeling is different.

If you are really particular, the choices for cups are vast, ranging from hand-painted porcelain cups costing a hundred or so, to thousand-yuan Tianmu cups (like the one in the picture above, though that one really can't be bought for just a thousand), to ancient kiln pieces with no upper limit – the potential for spending is limitless, so act according to your means.

Choosing white porcelain teacups makes it easy to observe the soup color, and they look simple and elegant, pleasing to the eye.

If you don't care about the soup color and like rustic teacups, there are many choices: celadon, Ge Kiln, rough pottery, imitation Ru Kiln, purple clay, etc.

When choosing the shape of the teacup, there are many shapes available, you can choose based on your preference. However, cups with an inward-curving rim might be more likely to burn the lips.

6. Other Accessories

Other accessories, like tea pets, tea washing bowls, cup stands, cup coasters, tea scoops, tea holders, can be added according to personal preference.