Teaware
Pick a situation and the list narrows to what it needs. Drinking alone at home takes six things; a formal table takes twenty, and most of the difference is about letting other people see.
Heating water
Bringing water to the temperature you need — electric, stovetop, gas or charcoal.
A kettle that goes straight onto a flame — the one you take outdoors.
The narrow spout lets you aim where the water lands.
Slow to heat and slow to lose it. Heavily roasted tea wants high temperatures, and ceramic holds them.
Light and hard to dent. A pot boiled on a mountain is not the same as one at home.
Brewing
Where leaf and water meet. Material matters: unglazed clay takes up aroma, porcelain does not.
Bowl, lid and saucer. Lift the lid and you can see the leaf and smell what is on it — easier to read than a pot.
Catching water
The water from warming the pot and cups lands on the tray and collects in the layer beneath.
The dry method only needs something under the pot. The table stays clean and packs away fast.
Holds the warming water and the rinse. With the dry method and no tray, this catches everything.
Pouring out
Liquor in the pot is not evenly strong top to bottom; everything comes in here, gets evened out, then goes out.
Catches the broken leaf. Left in the cup it keeps steeping, and the last mouthful is bitterer than the first.
Drinking
The one you drink from. The rim shape changes how aroma reaches the nose; wall thickness changes the temperature at the lip.
A tall narrow cup: pour the tea in, tip it out, and smell what stays on the wall.
A seat for the cup. Serving it, your hand stays off the cup; on the table, it leaves no ring.
Handling leaf
Moves leaf from the tin to the pot. Fingers leave both warmth and their own smell on it.
Digs the spent leaf out of the pot. With a narrow opening, fingers do not reach.
Clears a blocked spout. A slow pour makes that whole steep come out stronger than intended.
For handling cups. After warming they are too hot to hold, and with several guests tongs are faster and cleaner.
The measured leaf rests here for guests to see its shape and colour before it goes into the pot.
Prises compressed tea apart. Breaking a cake or brick by hand shatters the leaf, and the fragments brew bitter.
