Verdant Tea

Coasters are an indispensable part of modern gongfu ceremony. They can be placed on tea boards to protect yixing from scratching, or they can be paired with a tea boat to hold a pitcher, a strainer, and tea cups. These coasters are hand woven in Yunnan from bamboo and become darker over time as they absorb tea spills.

The ubiquitous tea cloth is a critical part of any gongfu tea ceremony. A cloth is critical to dab any drips from pitcher or pot as your pour, to wipe down your tea board between uses and to polish your yixing, jian zhan, celadon, or any other pottery that grows more beautiful over many uses. The soft absorbent material was designed specifically with teaware in mind.

Every tea set up looks best framed off by a runner, and this classic bamboo runner  is a perfect size and shape for compact gongfu set-ups. Bamboo is a popular choice for gongfu set-ups since you can simply wash the runner in a sink if it gets tea stained- no need to launder like cloth runners. The bamboo is evocative of the Song dynasty scholarly tradition and offers an incredible backdrop for stunning tea ceremony and daily tasting.

This saucer is perfect as a tea boat for modern gongfu brewing where you skip a full tea board. The saucer will catch any small drips from your teapot or pitcher and act as a beautiful understated backdrop while you brew. The saucer also works beautifully as a paring with any saucerless celadon gaiwans in the collection if you prefer the look and feel of a saucer set-up, but is equally at home with an yixing pot.

Maybe you already have a perfect gongfu setup, or you just need want to pick out a special teapot or gaiwan. This kit rounds up all the trimmings for serious gongfu brewing that you might not already have on hand- a chahai to present dry tea leaves and filter them into your teapot, a full set of tea tools, a tea cloth for catching drips or polishing your yixing between uses, and the critical water bowl for holding rinses or extra tea in a modern gongfu setup without a draining teaboard.

This tea set is everything you need to brew fine tea at home or to kickstart friends and family in gongfu tea brewing. This essentials collection includes a white porcelain gaiwan that is fully non-reactive for true, clean flavor and aroma. The cups are high fired porcelain from Peng Yuan Qing Hua studio in Dehua. The tempered glass pitcher and classic strainer make it easy to brew for a group. A beautiful draining tea board from Xiangfu Workshop is included with this set so you can pour your rinse or any extra tea right over the board and watch it drain below. The board comes with a tray to hold water, and a tube to drain to a bucket if you prefer.

Experimental Porcelain Artist Yi Xuan hosts professors, research students and collectors at her family home and kiln built into the side of a mountain on the outskirts of Dehua. When everyone gathers to have tea together, Yi Xuan uses only her own work to brew, and one of the top requests she kept hearing was for presentation plates that could act as teh foundation for a gaiwan or teapot, the saucer for a cup, or a plate to show off the tea leaves before brewing. This year, she decided to fire a very limited number of plates using her wild ash glaze finishing process. She released half to us and keeps half at her studio to offer guests as they sip. This truly one-of-a-kind piece is the exact plate pictured. Yi Xuan’s process and her kiln make for stunningly unique pieces that can never turn out the same again. Once this individual piece finds a new home, it is gone.

Experimental Porcelain Artist Yi Xuan hosts professors, research students and collectors at her family home and kiln built into the side of a mountain on the outskirts of Dehua. When everyone gathers to have tea together, Yi Xuan uses only her own work to brew, and one of the top requests she kept hearing was for presentation plates that could act as teh foundation for a gaiwan or teapot, the saucer for a cup, or a plate to show off the tea leaves before brewing. This year, she decided to fire a very limited number of plates using her wild ash glaze finishing process. She released half to us and keeps half at her studio to offer guests as they sip. This truly one-of-a-kind piece is the exact plate pictured. Yi Xuan’s process and her kiln make for stunningly unique pieces that can never turn out the same again. Once this individual piece finds a new home, it is gone.

Experimental Porcelain Artist Yi Xuan hosts professors, research students and collectors at her family home and kiln built into the side of a mountain on the outskirts of Dehua. When everyone gathers to have tea together, Yi Xuan uses only her own work to brew, and one of the top requests she kept hearing was for presentation plates that could act as teh foundation for a gaiwan or teapot, the saucer for a cup, or a plate to show off the tea leaves before brewing. This year, she decided to fire a very limited number of plates using her wild ash glaze finishing process. She released half to us and keeps half at her studio to offer guests as they sip. This truly one-of-a-kind piece is the exact plate pictured. Yi Xuan’s process and her kiln make for stunningly unique pieces that can never turn out the same again. Once this individual piece finds a new home, it is gone.

Experimental Porcelain Artist Yi Xuan hosts professors, research students and collectors at her family home and kiln built into the side of a mountain on the outskirts of Dehua. When everyone gathers to have tea together, Yi Xuan uses only her own work to brew, and one of the top requests she kept hearing was for presentation plates that could act as teh foundation for a gaiwan or teapot, the saucer for a cup, or a plate to show off the tea leaves before brewing. This year, she decided to fire a very limited number of plates using her wild ash glaze finishing process. She released half to us and keeps half at her studio to offer guests as they sip. This truly one-of-a-kind piece is the exact plate pictured. Yi Xuan’s process and her kiln make for stunningly unique pieces that can never turn out the same again. Once this individual piece finds a new home, it is gone.

We love modern gongfu. It’s versatility, the way it can incorporate into the everyday, the way pieces can be swapped out so easily depending on the tea, the weather and the mood. That’s why we wanted to finally offer a full modern gongfu set that shows off the ideals of this new style. What is modern gongfu? Simply, it’s tea without the draining board. Instead of a board, a runner is used and stands are put out for cups, pitchers and gaiwans. Without a board, the set is free to expand to accommodate more people, or fold up and be put away in tight spaces. Pieces can be swapped out to fit any occasion. This set includes a runner, a full set of tea tools, a Milk White Gaiwan, two aroma cup sets, a stunning glass pitcher, a tea boat for the gaiwan and a pitcher stand. The tea boat can double as a tea bowl for any rinse or extra brew. Aroma cups can be used with the tall cup to appreciate the aromatics of your tea, or you can pour directly into the tea bowl cups. All together- this set is our invitation to get into gongfu and enjoy your tea to the fullest.

This handy gongfu tea tool opens a whole new world in tea brewing. A strainer is traditionally used in gongfu tea ceremony to catch leaves from your gaiwan or yixing clay teapot while pouring into a pitcher. It can also be used to catch leaves when you steep more improvisationally, allowing you to use two tempered glasses or even mugs for brewing tea. This strainer does not use a metal or plastic mesh, but rather a extremely fine array of holes directly in the porcelain.

This thin, fine and lustrous porcelain strainer was meticulously hand-painted by Peng Yuan Qing Hua Studio in De Hua, one of China’s ancient porcelain capitols. The fine brushwork of a detailed pattern like this take years of practice, a good eye and a steady hand. The strainer is uniquely made from fine hotels in the porcelain itself, not a plastic mesh, making the whole piece more durable.

This dream-like, abstract hand-painted porcelain tea strainer from Peng Yuan Qing Hua studio shows off their masterful, gestural painting skills and the depth of color contrast they achieve between lustrous white porcelain and traditional blue glaze. Their inspiration point was the enveloping feeling of the aromatic steam that rises from the tea set and catches the light in misty waves. Their high-fired, highly-vitrified porcelain is completely non-reactive and perfect to show off a true sense of any tea. The strainer is uniquely made from fine hotels in the porcelain itself, not a plastic mesh, making the whole piece more durable.

The creamy blue of the distinctive Ru glaze was first pioneered in the Song Dynasty to evoke the sky. Now, the master craftspeople at the Jie Feng studio in Dehua fire these Ru pieces at over 1100 degrees celsius to bring back this Song Dynasty tradition. This set comes with a gaiwan, a pitcher and strainer, all a pleasure to hold and a beautiful contrast to the color of tea, especially as they crackle over time. Pair with your own choice of favorite cups, perhaps with contrasting Jian Zhan, white Jingdezhen porcelain, or even green celadon.

Don't want a cat clambering over your fine porcelain? Zhao Yonghui's hand-made tea pet promises to behave! This fat cat is ready for chill tea sessions and full of character thanks to Zhao Yoghui's skillful carving work. Made from real Duan Ni Yixing clay, years of pouring a little of each brew over this tea animal will give it a lustrous patina and deep color.

Fully hand-sculpted by artist Zhao Yonghui, this adorable tea pet is made from real Duan Ni Yixing clay. The artist looks to bring a lively energy to each of his pieces, and this baby rabbit exemplifies his style, huddled up and ready for tea. Years of pouring a little of each brew over this tea animal will give it a lustrous patina and deep color.

A perfect companion for gongfu brewing, this tiger is ready to sip tea with you all day. Zhao Yonghui meticulously hand-carved and hand-painted this tea pet, giving it an expressive air of serenity. Made from real Duan Ni Yixing clay, years of pouring a little of each brew over this tea animal will give it a lustrous patina and deep color.

This tea pet by artist Zhao Yonghui embraces the traditional bird form, imbuing it with a cute lively energy with his hand-crafting. Made from real Duan Ni Yixing clay, years of pouring a little of each brew over this tea animal will give it a lustrous patina and deep color.

This trio of tea animals makes for a perfectly festive tea board, giving you lifelong gongfu tea companions. While most tea animals are machine-made, Yixing artist Zhao Yonghui insists on sourcing high quality clay and carefully hand-sculpting each piece to give them personality. Pouring tea of the tea animals helps them build up a beautiful patina over time. This set shows off the playful dynamic energy that Zhao Yonghui put’s into his work, one that keeps rewarding you for years to come.

This fully hand-made tea pet from artist Zhao Yonghui celebrates the story of Chang’e, who spirited away the recipe for the elixir of immortality, and either becomes a rabbit, or is accompanied by a rabbit who produces the elixir with a mortar and pestle. The textural detail of the moon’s craters, along with the intricate rabbit perched on top make for a stunning tea animal and example of Zhao Yonghui’s craft.

Hand-made from fine Yixing clay by artist Zhao Yonghui, this serene rabbit sits in contemplation, a perfect companion for daily tea. Note the detail of the rabbits fur, and the accentuated ears. This tea animal will get deeper and more lustrous as you ‘feed’ it with tea every time you brew.

We’ve all seen how cats can miraculously fold themselves up into perfect balls, or loaves of bread. This portrait of a perfectly sleeping cat by artist Zhao Yonghui was hand-sculpted with fine yixing clay that will get deeper and more lustrous over time as you pour tea over your tea pet.

Artist Zhao Yonghui thinks its important to have a companion for all your tea adventures, so how about this artfully sculpted, meticulously detailed Panda Explorer? They’ve even got their own panda satchel! The fine yixing clay that Zhao Yonghui uses will grow deeper and more lustrous every time you feed your tea pet by pouring brewed tea over it.

Artist Zhao Yonghui’s reimagines the mythical Qilin as a baby tea animal, a companion for sipping your favorite brews. The qilin is a chimaera, a combination of lion, deer, sometimes dragon, and even giraffe, often thought of as a lucky portent. This sculptural, stylized, sounded Qilin is unique and expressive, showing off Zhao Yonghui’s skill as a potter.

Zhao Yonghui’s fully handmade lucky turtle makes for an auspicious teatime companion. the golden mottled clay is built up with intricate texture through layers to evoke a turtle shell, all in a way that will take on gorgeous deep patina over time.

This striking glass pitcher ripples like glacial ice in the sun, amplifying light and showing off the color of your tea as you pour. With glass, you can see the leaves unfold in the pitcher for traditional green tea brewing and connect with the craft of the people behind the tea before you take your first sip. Tempered for brewing with boiling water and elegantly gilded, this is a stunning addition to any gongfu setup.

This masterful pitcher from Min Xin Tang takes meticulous craft to capture a perfectly clear mountain in glass. The effect of the mountain is stunning when the pitcher is filled with tea and lit by the sun as it catches the angles and shines like dawn breaking over a real mountain. The wood handle is a pleasure to hold, creating a gorgeous offset to the crystalline tempered glass.

This thin, fine, lustrous porcelain features a meticulously hand painted pine bough in incredible detail. The modern sleek shape is perfect for any gongfu set up, and the fully-vitrified non-reactive high fired porcelain amplifies the aromatics of any tea you pour from it, perfect for serious and contemplative tasting.

Classical Chinese porcelain motifs were all about the deep blue brushwork, with early blue glaze being the best color to survive the intense heat of the kiln. This pitcher evokes that classical style with an elegant hand-painted pomegranate tree. Pengyuan Qinghua Studio turns all of their own ultra-thin porcelain, vitrified at an extremely high firing temperature for teaware fine enough to amplify tea’s aromatics and allow light to pass through, giving each piece a glowing quality. Striking detail in the brushwork around the branches is matched with a beautiful dream-like quality in the blue of the fruit itself, showing off the artist’s skill.

This lovely tempered glass pitcher shows off your tea in gorgeous clarity, its facets lighting up in the sun. The wide geometric design lets you hold the edges without burning your hands, even with a full pitcher. This piece was designed and commissioned by the Peng Yuan Qing Hua Studio in Dehua to pair with their hand-painted gaiwans, teapots and teacups for a beautiful contrast.

This faceted hexagonal pitcher is the perfect pairing with a celadon gaiwan or tea pot. The facets show off the beautiful glazing work, while the modern picture style works in almost any set-up, even making a great color contrast paired with yixing clay teapots. Hand-finished and fired in a traditional Longquan kiln, this celadon is highly vitrified like glass, making it a non-reactive material that helps bring out incredible aromatic depth in your tea.

This creamy blue-green Ru glaze pitcher celebrates the tradition of bringing new life to old pieces through gold repair work. As ancient pieces are excavated, instead of preserving cracked shards, modern collectors are repairing these relics with gold so that they can be used in tea brewing the way the original artist intended. This gold work has spurred the growth of a new craft, adding adornment to the repairs- a modern dialog with ancient pieces. This Ru pot draws on the goldwork tradition with a golden motif of its own, a contrast to the lightly-crackled Ru glaze itself.

Pouring tea into such a deep nuanced pitcher lights up the subtle color variation brought on by artist Yi Xuan’s incredible three day high-temperature wood-firing process. The natural iridescence and metallic swirling is an artifact of the extreme heat patterns reflecting in the kiln. This pitcher is not glazed, its color comes entirely from iron-oxide dusts present in her porcelain reacting to the heat of the firing. The pitcher is built out of improbably thin porcelain, not clay, since only Yi Xuan’s special porcelain blend can stand up to the outrageous heat of her kiln. The unglazed porcelain makes this piece incredibly thin and light, a true pleasure to hold in the hand.

Pouring tea into such a deep nuanced pitcher lights up the subtle color variation brought on by artist Yi Xuan’s incredible three day high-temperature wood-firing process. The natural iridescence and metallic swirling is an artifact of the extreme heat patterns reflecting in the kiln. This pitcher is not glazed, its color comes entirely from iron-oxide dusts present in her porcelain reacting to the heat of the firing. The pitcher is built out of improbably thin porcelain, not clay, since only Yi Xuan’s special porcelain blend can stand up to the outrageous heat of her kiln. The unglazed porcelain makes this piece incredibly thin and light, a true pleasure to hold in the hand.

Pouring tea into this beautifully hand shaped pitcher lights up the subtle color variation brought on by artist Yi Xuan’s incredible three day high-temperature wood-firing process. The natural iridescence and metallic swirling is an artifact of the extreme heat patterns reflecting in the kiln. This pitcher is not glazed, its color comes entirely from iron-oxide dusts present in her porcelain reacting to the heat of the firing. The pitcher is built out of improbably thin porcelain, not clay, since only Yi Xuan’s special porcelain blend can stand up to the outrageous heat of her kiln. The unglazed porcelain makes this piece incredibly thin and light, a true pleasure to hold in the hand.

Artist Yi Xuan took this pitcher through two full firing processes after hand shaping this beautiful piece, first, an electric firing to set the porcelain, then a dip in a hand-blended ash glaze and an extensive multi-day wood-firing in her old-school kiln, reaching temperatures so high that the pitcher has to be hand-built from her custom porcelain blend instead of traditional clay. The result of this painstaking process is a unique, deep, complex pitcher that shows off the heat signature of the kiln and the way glazing interacts with unglazed porcelain across multiple firings. Work like this is what puts the Yi Xuan Ceramics Research Institute on the map!

This set includes a full canister of Manzhaya's Special Grade incense, a full canister of their wild foraged Reserve incense, and a package of classic temple incense, along with five of their hand-made incense cones. Nobody makes incense like Manzhaya. Their project was born out of living Buddha Danzing Qunpei’s lifetime of research into Tibetan Medicine Sutras, reviving ancient incense recipes formulated from wild herbs that can be foraged within the Meili Glacier National Park. The Special Grade, Reserve and Temple Incense are all balanced at different levels and proportions for their own unique qualities. All three are deep and evocative, like exploring an endless cedar grove. Manzhaya incense is made without chemical additives - a truly ancient old-school craft. This kit is the chance to try the full scope of Danzing Qunpei’s work and experience the very best of Tibet’s unique incense culture.

Created by Lide Manzhaya, this wild-foraged special grade incenseis a contemplative incense experience on par with fine aloeswood - deep, foresty, sweet and utterly complex.

Created by Da Xin Tang, this Awakening coil incense is made with Sandalwood Heartwood. This coil is blended in Taiwan with Indonesian sandalwood heartwood for a beautiful and meditative incense.

Created by Da Xin Tang, this Honored Path Blend coil incense is true Vietnamese Hui An aloeswood. This coil is blended in Taiwan specifically for pairing with tea ceremony. Its aromas are complementary to almost any tea, but especially to oolong tea.

Created by Da Xin Tang, this Awakening stick incense is made with Sandalwood Heartwood. This incense is blended in Taiwan with Indonesian sandalwood heartwood for a beautiful and meditative incense. Awakening’s aroma is fresh, crisp and full of pine, with the deep sandalwood aroma that we associate with Buddhist temples and meditation ceremony. This association makes it perfect for tea ceremony, especially in large spaces or outdoors and in the forest. Da Xin Tang describes this tea as having a “creamy and sweet” aroma, best suited for purifying the air, relieving anxiety, and creating a cozy and comforting atmosphere. Includes: 40g box // Duration: approximately 45 minutes // Ingredients: Indonesian sandalwood heartwood

This simple and effective incense holder works as a multi-purpose tool for holding both coil and stick incense. Place in a cup, bowl, or on a plate to catch falling ash.