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Tea ceramics @ Siam Tea Shop

For a while, developing a new tea-ceramic line proved to be one of the biggest challenges since the establishment of Siam Tea Shop. Originally, I had managed to source ancient, hand-made teapots and other tea accessories from China. My source was a market in Doi Mae Salong, North Thailand, where these old quality handcrafts were available at a more than reasonable price. At that time, there was still a “green” border between North Thailand and China.

Today, there is no more such green border, and that market has lost much of its attractiveness since. Anyway, when stocks went down, I undertook thorough investigations towards the actual source.  However, when my efforts led to the conclusion that such goods were no longer produced or available, I was up the creek without a paddle. What would I offer at Siam Tee Shop that would meet my quality and individuality requirements? Cheap industrial products that would sell through nice visual appearance? For god’s sake, no… Alternatively, however, importing high-quality tea pottery across the distance from China would be rather difficult.

Later, we added a comparatively easy-to-source line of Japanese tea pottery: Kyusu teapots, yuzamashi, Japanese tea cups and, of course, matcha bowls. Still, the future of Siam Tea Shop’s Chinese tea pottery line remained uncertain.

The SiamTeas Signature Tea Pottery Line

Until one day, when I stumbled upon the website of a Belgian pottery master, specialized in Chinese and Japanese tea pottery. What I saw there, especially the artist’s unglazed works, fascinated me right away. And inspired me to the idea of ​​a “Signature” tea ceramics line at Siam Tea Shop.

This way, I would not only be able to match the targeted quality, but also achieve a particularly high degree of individuality. And I could ensure that no industrial processes would be part of the production of my tea ceramics. Plus, everything would be 100% handmade. What a great idea … And here was the opportunity to make it happen.

Such motivated, I contacted the artist and talked to her about my idea. At this, the individual elements of the line were to be based on existing works of the artist, but according to my own specifications. The rest is history … And today, you can find the results here at Siam Tea Shop.

SiamTeas Signature Porcelain Tea Cup 50ml

Another quite basic “tool” in tea preparation is the actual drinking vessel, the tea cup. After all, even the finest and most carefully prepared tea will give you little, without a suitable vessel to drink it from.

Design

Our SiamTeas Signature porcelain tea cup combines Japanese and Chinese design elements. On the one hand, the outwards vaulted upper walls of the bowl are rather reminiscent of the Chinese style. Then, the relatively flat, but slightly higher version is attributable to the Japanese tea cup tradition. For the best handling and temperature characteristics, our tea cup consists of the finest porcelain, with relatively high wall thickness. In a way, this might go at the expense of visual elegance, but in turn rewards with a high degree of robustness and breaking strength.

Properties

In accordance with relevant Chinese / Japanese standards, the tea cup, made of finest China bone, takes about 50ml of tea at normal filling level. However, each of our tea bowls is hand-crafted individually, so that practically every tea bowl is unique and can show slight deviations in shape and capacity.

Other elements of our SiamTeas Signature Tea Ceramics Line

Our SiamTeas Signature Tea Ceramics line further includes the following core elements of the casual or ritual tea preparation:

• Yixing Teapot 200ml, unglazed, fine red clay,
• Yixing Teapot 200ml, unglazed, fine yellow clay,
• Yuzamashi 250ml, unglazed, coarse red clay,
• Yuzamashi 250ml, unglazed, fine yellow clay,
• Porcelain Tea Cup 50ml, glazed

Moreover, teapot, shibo and yuzamashi are also available as an ensemble, of course coming with a price advantage:

• The SiamTeas Signature Tea Pottery Ensemble