Verdant Tea

Gongfu tea is all about adaptability. Sometimes you want to carry tea to the backyard - sometimes you want it in bed. This simple and sweet little bamboo tray is the perfect base to a perfect spur-of-the-moment cup, carefully crafted from bamboo with a beautifully deep finish.

This beautiful tea boat from Xiangfu studio shows off their mastery of wood carving with a crackle motif and contrasting curved board shape, evocative of artistic patterns inspired by the exchange between China and the middle east through the Silk Road. The lip around the board itself will catch drips as you brew, making it the perfect backdrop for modern gongfu paired with a water bowl. Compact enough to be used on a desk with a full set of gaiwan, pitcher and cups, or as part of a larger modern gongfu set up, this is an elegant and versatile piece to have on hand for tea or even iced drinks in the summer.

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.

This stunning and truly unique tea boat from Xiangfu workshop is made from a combination of aromatic yew wood and resin. Beautiful pieces of yew are selected for their unique wood grains and shapes, and allowed to truly stand out against the swirled resin. This hand-building process means every piece is unlike any other. When the fragrant board is used for tea, the heat and moisture bring out deep forestry aromatics in the wood, bringing nature to your daily tea.

Xiangfu’s Zheng series is named after the stringed instrument since the carved grooves mimc the zheng’s strings. Groves running to a drain channel allow this personal-sized tea board to draw water away from your teapot, keeping it even and well-seasoned. The compact footprint is perfect for desk-side modern gongfu.

This brilliantly-assembled essential gongfu set is everything you need to make the time and space for fine tea, wherever you may be. The set includes a fine lustrous porcelain gaiwan, edged with a warm natural band for contrast, three matching cups with just the right flare to bring out the aromatics of tea, a tempered glass pitcher to show off the color of the finished brew, a tea towel that doubles as a runner for a formal gongfu set up, and a plastic case to dump extra tea whose lid doubles as a tea boat for your gaiwan. Everything packs into a hard case zip carrier that takes up less space than a single folded T-shirt. The perfect essential gongfu solution.

This elegant solid walnut tea tray was carved by Jianyi Workshop as the perfect backdrop for modern gongfu ceremony. In modern gongfu, water is not poured over cups and pots, but rather poured into a special bowl, allowing for a more flexible and versatile set up that takes up less space than a draining board and is easier to move around. This beautiful piece is adorned with a golden mountain to accent the implied landscape of the walnut wood grain.

This ceramic stand is the perfect pairing with a tea boat. The boat can hold your teapot or gaiwan while the stand sets off your pitcher for a truly elegant modern gongfu set up. While not in active use, the stand makes a perfect display stand for your most treasured yixing pottery or ceramics.

If you have beautiful, hand-picked and hand finished tea, why not take a moment to show off the beauty of the leaves? This elegant scoop sets the tone, both playful and gorgeous, letting you pass around a perfectly-twisted Wuyi oolong or rolled Tieguanyin before brewing.

This lustrous white bowl is perfect for holding first rinses and excess tea in modern gongfu tea ceremony. Adding a bowl to your tea set eliminates the need for a large draining tea board. This modern, purposeful and elegant way to drink tea can be reconfigured in any space for any size gathering. This bowl comes with a bamboo funnel that gives it a clean, elegant look and keeps the bowl from becoming overfull. The funnel can double as a tool to help pour fluffy tea leaves into teapots in a pinch. The Longquan porcelain finish is easy to keep bright and clean.

This chahe is a specialized presentation plate to measure out your tea leaves, show them around, smell them and easily pour them into a teapot or gaiwan. The bright white porcelain is a great neutral background to really let your tea leaves shine.

Our tea-growing partners like to describe tea as tian di ren, a collaboration between earth, sky and people. These coasters are an evocative reflection on this collaboration - with resin capturing the feeling of “sky,” of water and air, the wood burls as nature and earth, and the joining of the two, the act of craft by the workshop, the people. Symbolism aside, these are a stunning and beautiful coaster solution, ready to carve out a special space on your table for the finest teas. Each coaster is unique.