About the utensils needed for tea

Introduction to tea sets: Traditional tea sets

The four treasures of the teahouse:

The so-called "four treasures of the teahouse" are indispensable. That is, Yushu (Shiwei), Chaoshan furnace, Mengchen jar, and Ruochen Ou.

The jade book (Shiwei) is a kettle for boiling water. It is an ocher-colored thin porcelain flat pot with a water capacity of approximately 250 ml. When the water boils, the lid makes a "bu bu" sound, like calling someone to make tea. This type of teapot is rarely used in modern times. Most teahouses use the slightly larger purple clay teapot from Yixing, which is usually in the shape of a pumpkin or a Dongpo handle teapot. There are also stainless steel kettles, which use electricity and can be kept warm. In desperation, I filled a large glass beaker with water and placed it in the microwave to boil. Two points need to be paid attention to in this method. First, the time and firepower of the microwave oven must be adjusted properly to prevent the water from being boiled or old. It requires many trials to master it; second, the odor in the microwave oven must be removed.

Chaoshan stove is a stove used for boiling water. It is small and exquisite, can adjust the air volume, control the firepower, and uses charcoal as fuel. This furnace is also rarely used in modern times. In the tea house, I saw three types of water boiling utensils. A small stove also made of purple clay. A small solid alcohol lamp can be placed in the stove and used with a large purple clay pot to boil water. It seems that there are also some that burn wax. However, whether it is solid alcohol or wax, be careful not to have any smell or smoke; one is an insulating electric heater with a stainless steel kettle on an electric hot plate; the other is a magnetic induction water boiler with a glass kettle (stainless steel at the bottom?) Place on induction plate. Of these three utensils, the purple clay stove and purple clay teapot are the most artistic and suitable for tea tasting. However, they are heavier and easier to damage, making them inconvenient to carry far away.

The Mengchen jar is a teapot for making tea. For Yixing purple clay teapots, small ones are the most valuable. Meng Chen is Hui Mengchen, a master pot maker in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. The small pots he made are very famous. The size of the pot varies depending on the number of people, but is generally a small pot with a capacity of less than 300 ml.

If you have a cup, you can taste the tea cup. It is a small cup made of white porcelain with an inverted mouth. The cup is small and shallow, and can hold about 10-20 ml of water. There are two types of commonly used drinking cups (different from scent cups). One is a white porcelain cup, and the other is a purple clay cup with white porcelain on the inner wall. There are also pure purple clay drinking cups, which I personally think are not advisable because they are not good for the color of the tea.

In addition to these four essential tea sets, a wide variety of other tea sets are still used in the brewing of oolong tea. A brief introduction is as follows:

Tea boats and tea trays. The shape of the tea boat is plate-shaped or bowl-shaped, with the teapot placed in it. It is used for heating the kettle and scalding the cup when filling hot water, and it can also be used to maintain the teapot. The tea tray is used to hold the teapot and cups. Nowadays, the tea tray with two parts in one is commonly used, that is, the tea tray with holes is placed on the tea boat. This kind of tea tray was produced because the brewing process of oolong tea is more complicated. From the initial hot pot, hot water is required for each brewing, and the double-layered tea boat can allow water to flow to the lower layer without causing mess. Dirty countertops. Tea trays come in different textures, with purple sand and bamboo being commonly used. I have a small purple clay tea tray shaped like a lotus flower, which is very small and beautiful.

Tea Sea. Shaped like an open teapot without a handle. Because the brewing of oolong tea is very time-sensitive, even a difference of a few seconds or more will greatly change the quality of the tea soup. Therefore, even if it takes just ten seconds to pour the tea soup out of the pot, the intensity of the tea soup that comes out at the beginning and at the end is very different. In order to avoid uneven density, pour all the tea soup into the sea of ??tea first, and then divide it into cups. At the same time, it can precipitate tea residue and tea powder. Nowadays, stainless steel filters are also commonly used, placed on the sea of ??tea, so that the tea soup flows from the filter into the sea of ??tea to filter out the tea residues. I don't think this method is advisable because stainless steel itself has a somewhat peculiar smell. At least for aromatic second-brewed tea, no filter can be used.

Chahe. The shape is mostly hemispherical with an opening, made of porcelain or bamboo, and is used to hold dry tea for appreciating the dry tea and putting it into the teapot. A good porcelain tea lotus is a handicraft in itself, but it is a pity that many tea houses omit the tea lotus.

Smell cup. It is a tea set unique to oolong tea and is used for scenting. It is slender and is mostly used when brewing Taiwan's highly fragrant oolong. It is matched with the drinking cup and has the same texture. Adding a saucer makes it a set of scented cups.

Teaspoon. Most of them are made of bamboo, but now they are also made of boxwood. One end is curved and used to put tea into the pot and take out the tea residue from the pot.

In addition, there are various auxiliary tea sets such as tea bowls, tea clips, tea cups, and tea drains. They are not necessarily used when making tea and will not be discussed in detail here.

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In the modern tea art of life , Commonly used tea making utensils include: teapot, pot mat, cover cup, water boiler, tea boat, tea cup, coaster, tea sea, tea lotus, teaspoon, tea bag, tea cup, tea tray, water bowl, etc. These appliances come in different shapes, colors, and materials. We can choose appliances that are more practical and easy to operate to match. Scented tea, green tea and green teas that pay more attention to aroma can be brewed in porcelain pots, covered cups (covered bowls) or glass cups; partially fermented oolong tea, Tieguanyin, Narcissus, etc. should be brewed with purple clay tea sets. Gongfu black tea and broken black tea are generally brewed in porcelain or purple clay pots. When drinking green tea or other delicate teas, no matter what kind of tea set is used, the tea set should be small rather than large, because using a large cup will contain more water and high heat, which will easily make the tea soup taste like "cooked soup".

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If tea is collected and stored in the family, then The can storage method is suitable. Cans can be stored in porcelain bottles, clay pots, paint boxes, glass jars and other containers, especially tin cans. Put in a small bag of silica gel (take it out when red appears, bake over low heat or in the sun until it turns green, and then continue to use it), the effect will be more ideal.