Verdant Tea

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.

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.

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.

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.

These beautiful ritual presentation plates were sculpted with tea boats in mind for modern gongfu ceremony. Each was hand built and fired by master potter Dangzhen Pichu. The handles are adorned with intricately sculpted and expressive Tibetan Kirin figures, while the bottom of each plate is hand-signed by the artist. These pieces are perfect to hold a small gongfu tea set, or act as tea boat and catch overflow for a pot. Each is unique with natural variation in finish, color and texture.

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.

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.

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.

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.