Varieties of tea sets

In China, there are various kinds of exquisite tea sets of both practical and artistic values. Chinese tea sets are well known at home and abroad and favored by tea lovers through the ages. Over the long developing history of tea drinking in China, both the customs and the processes have gone through great changes. As for special tools for drinking tea, tea sets have also undergone an evolution.

There are some major types of tea sets include as follows: first of all, the Fictile Tea Sets, among the fictile tea sets, the purple clay tea set made in Yixing is regarded as the best one. The purple clay teapot is made of unglazed clay, which is baked with purple and red mud specially found in the local area. Since it is densely agglomerated and finely molded at a high temperature, such a teapot not only can hold water without leakage but also can absorb liquid and retain some of the flavor of the tea due to its porous nature unperceivable by naked eye. The purple clay teapot is slow in heat transfer, preventing one from scalding one's hand. It can also keep tealeaves from spoiling in hot days.  

      And there has the Porcelain Tea Sets. White-porcelain tea sets are the most famous white-porcelain producing area is Jingdezhen, and other areas include Liling of Hunan Province, Tangshan of Hebei Province and Qimen of Anhui Province. In the Yuan Dynasty, Jingdezhen was well known for its celadon that enjoyed a hot sale overseas. 


     
Celadon tea sets: celadon tea sets began to enjoy popularity from the Jin Dynasty, and reached its height of splendor in the Song Dynasty when Longquange Kiln of Zhejiang Province, one of the five famous kilns at the time, produced various kinds of celadon products, including teapots, tea bowls, cups and trays, etc. 

Black-porcelain tea sets: In the Song Dynasty, tea contest was prevalent in Fujian. Contestants believed that black-porcelain tea cup made in Jian'an was the most suitable ware to improve tea quality, thus such tea sets gradually gained a high reputation far and near. As described in the Record of Tea by Cai Xiang of the Song Dynasty, to make the water appear limpid, better use black-porcelain cups. Cups made in Jian'an are dark purple in color, with fine lines like rabbit hair.