In modern times, glassware has developed greatly. Glass is transparent and shiny. Plastic appearance, different shapes, a wide range of uses, glass tea, tea soup bright color, tea tender and smooth, tea in the whole brewing process up and down, tea gradually stretched. At a glance, it can be said that it is a dynamic artistic appreciation. In particular, all kinds of famous teas and tea sets we brew are crystal clear. The cup is misty, green and dripping, full of buds and leaves, slim and graceful, pleasing to the eye and interesting. Moreover, glass is cheap and good, which is very popular with consumers.

The disadvantage of glassware is that it is easily broken and hotter than ceramics.

Enamel tea set

Enamel tea sets are famous for their durability, fresh patterns, portability and corrosion resistance. It originated in ancient Egypt and was later introduced to Europe. However, the cast iron enamel used now began in Germany and Austria at the beginning of19th century. Enamel technology was introduced to China around the Yuan Dynasty.

During the Jingtai period of the Ming Dynasty (A.D. 1450- 1456), China created a cloisonne tea set inlaid with enamel. During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty (A.D. 1736- 1795), cloisonne flowed from the court to the people, which can be said to be the beginning of China enamel industry.

China really began to produce enamel tea sets at the beginning of this century, with a history of more than 70 years. Among many enamel tea sets, imitation porcelain teacups are white, delicate and bright, which can rival porcelain. The net-dazzled teacup decorated with net or colored net has distinct layers and strong artistic sense; Lightweight and unique drum cups and butterfly cups; Thermal insulation teacups can not only play the role of thermal insulation, but also be easy to carry. Colored glazed tea trays for placing teapots and teacups are welcomed by many tea drinkers. However, enamel tea sets can transfer heat quickly and burn hands easily. If you put it on the coffee table, it will burn to the desktop. In addition, "value" is low. Therefore, it has limited use and is generally not used for entertaining guests at home.

Taotu tea set

Pottery is an important invention in the Neolithic Age. At first, it was rough earthenware, and then it gradually evolved into relatively solid hard pottery, and then developed into glazed pottery with glazed surface. Yixing's ancient pottery was quite developed. In Shang and Zhou Dynasties, geometric printed hard pottery appeared. During the Qin and Han Dynasties, glazed pottery had been fired.

Yixing purple sand tea set, the first pottery, rose as early as the early Northern Song Dynasty and became a unique and excellent tea set, which was very popular in the Ming Dynasty. Different from ordinary pottery, the teapot is not glazed inside and outside, but is made of local purple mud, red mud and Tuanshan mud. Because of high firing temperature, compact sintering, fine tire quality, no leakage and no pores, it can be used for a long time, and can also absorb tea juice, which contains tea flavor; And the heat transfer is not fast, so that it is not hot; If you drink tea in hot weather, it is not easy to be sour; Even if the heat and cold change dramatically, it will not break; If necessary, it is even required to simmer directly on the stove. Zisha tea set also has the characteristics of simple and square shape and simple color, and its shape is like bamboo joint, lotus root, loose joint and imitation of Shang and Zhou ancient bronzes. "Taoxi Hakka Dialect" said that "Yangxian (Yixing) porcelain pots have flourished since the beginning of the season, and the top is quite golden." Visible its precious. Ming Zhen enjoys the record of "Chronicle of the Long Story": "The pot is sand, and the cover is not fragrant or ripe."

During Jiajing and Wanli years in Ming Dynasty, two outstanding masters of purple sand craft appeared successively-Gong Chun and his apprentice Shi Dabin. Gong Temple used to be buddhist nun, a scholar in Wuyishan when he was a child. He is brilliant and eager to learn. He accompanied the master at Jinsha Temple in Yixing and often helped the old monks in the temple make pots. Legend has it that there are ginkgo trees in the temple, which are intertwined and covered with tree tumors. He watched it day and night. It imitates the tree tumor and makes a tree tumor pot, which is unique and vivid. The old monk was greatly surprised when he saw it, so he taught his lifelong pot-making skills to each other and became a famous pot-making master. Spring Festival products are called "Spring Festival Pot", which is novel and exquisite in shape and thin in texture, and is known as "Spring Festival Pot is better than jade". "Chestnuts are dark, like ancient stones; How can you be a fairy when you are fat and concentrated? " Shi Dabin's works broke through the mode taught by the master, and made more small pots, which were dotted on several cases in the refined house, more in line with the taste of drinking tea. Therefore, there was a highly praised poem at that time: "There are many kinds of faithful hands", "Gong Zhongyan said it was a big pot of rice." By the Qing Dynasty, purple sand tea set had more development on the basis of predecessors. Among them, teapots made in Chen Mingyuan in the early Qing Dynasty and Yang Pengnian in Jiaqing period are particularly famous in the world. The teapot made in Chen Mingyuan has clear lines and obvious outlines. The lid of the teapot bears the seal of "Ming Yuan", a running script, and it is still regarded as a treasure. Yang Pengnian's products are elegant, exquisite, handmade and flawless, so they are called "contemporary masterpieces". At that time, Chen Mansheng, a magistrate of Liyang County, Jiangsu Province, loved teapot, was good at poetry, calligraphy and seal cutting, and went to Yixing and Yang Pengnian to make pots. Chen Mansheng designed, produced and carved by Chen. His works are known as "full pots". It has always been treasured by connoisseurs. In the Qing Dynasty, Yixing teapot was very popular at home and abroad because of its diverse shapes and decorations. At that time, teapots used to brew congou in southern Fujian and Chaozhou were almost Yixing purple pottery vessels. /kloc-in the 7th century, tea and teapots in China were spread to the west by sea ships at the same time, and westerners called them "red porcelain". As early as the15th century, the Japanese came to China to learn pot-making technology, and their imitation pots are still regarded as treasures by the Japanese people.

Hand-made teapot by famous artists has a beautiful shape, simple color and dazzling brilliance, and has become a work of art. In the past, it was said that one or two purple sand tea sets were worth 10 to 20 gold, which could make earth compete with gold. In the Ming Dynasty, Zhang Dai's Dream of Taoan said: Gongchun is the top of Yixing jar, and it is a sand jar, which is straight between Shang, Yi and Yi without shame. Precious can be imagined.

In recent years, purple sand tea sets have made great progress, and new varieties are constantly emerging. For example, an artistic tea set specially designed for Japanese consumers is called "horizontal handle pot". According to Japanese hobbies, Buddhist scriptures with exquisite calligraphy are written on the surface of the pot, which has become a good tool for Japanese consumers to taste tea. At present, the variety of purple sand tea sets has increased from forty or fifty to more than 600. For example, the purple sand double-layer thermos cup is a new product welcomed by the masses. Because purple mud is delicate and flexible in texture, strong in plasticity and good in air permeability, the fired double-layer thermos cup is used to make tea, which has the characteristics of color, fragrance and not easy to turn sour in summer. The capacity of this cup is 250 ml. Because of the double-layer structure, boiling water does not burn hands when entering the cup, which has slow heat transfer and long heat preservation time. There are various shapes, such as melon wheel, butterfly pattern, plum blossom, goose egg and streamline. Artists use traditional seal cutting techniques to apply orthography, cursive script, official script, cage, seal cutting and other painting and decoration techniques to purple sand pottery, making it a product with a clever combination of appreciation and practicality.

The creator of the teapot is said to be an unknown monk in Jinsha Temple in Yixing, Ming Dynasty. He selected the best purple mud to knead it into a round blank, added a mouth, a handle and a lid, and put it into a kiln for firing. There is a tree gall pot with a broken cover, which is magnificent in shape. It exists in the Beijing History Museum and is the only handed down product in Chunchun, but some people suspect that it is a fake. Since Gong Chun became famous in Ming Dynasty for imitating the old ginkgo tree to make pots in the spring, four famous pot makers appeared in Wanli period of Ming Dynasty, including HanDong, Zhao Liang, Wen Chang and Shi Peng, followed by Shi Dabin, Li Zhongfang and Xu Youquan, and Chen Mingyuan, Yang Pengnian, Yang Fengnian and Shao Daheng in Qing Dynasty. In modern times, there were Gu Jingzhou, Zhu Kexin and Jiang Rong. Gu Jingzhou recently made Tibby Pot and Han Yun Pot as overseas gifts. Young artists are also talented people.

There are many styles of purple sand tea sets, and the so-called "square is different, round is different". Carving various styles of flowers, birds, landscapes and calligraphy on the teapot began in the late Ming Dynasty and flourished after Jiaqing in the Qing Dynasty, gradually becoming a unique artistic decoration in the purple sand craft. Many famous poets and artists used to write poems and lettering on teapots. Textual Research on the Sand Pot once recorded that Zheng Banqiao made a pot by himself, and he wrote a poem in his own hand: "You can only be proud if you talk fast and have a big belly. A small amount can't accommodate big events, and two or three inches of water will make waves. "

To evaluate a tea set, we should first consider its practical value. A set of tea sets can only be considered as a perfect set if the proportion of volume and weight is appropriate, the handle of the pot is easy to lift, the periphery of the pot cover is sewed, the spout is smooth, the colors and patterns are exquisite and harmonious, and the aesthetics and practicality of the whole set of tea sets are harmoniously combined. Yixing tea has these characteristics.

Zisha tea set is not only loved by Chinese people, but also cherished by people in some overseas countries. As early as15th century, Japanese, Portuguese, Dutch, German and British ceramic workers successively copied China's teapots as specimens. 1At the beginning of the 8th century, German Tagel not only made purple pottery, but also wrote a paper entitled "Cinnabar Porcelain" in 1908. At the beginning of this century, purple sand pottery was exhibited in Panama, London and Paris expositions, and won the prize in 1932 Chicago Exposition, which added luster to the history of Chinese ceramics.

Metal tea set

Metal utensils refer to utensils made of metal materials such as gold, silver, copper, iron and tin. It is one of the oldest daily utensils in China. As early as18th century BC to 1500 years before Qin Shihuang unified China in 22/kloc-0 BC. Ancestors used bronzes to make plates, hold water, make cups and hold wine. These bronzes can naturally be used to hold tea.

From the Qin and Han Dynasties to the Six Dynasties, tea as a drink gradually became a fashion, and tea sets were gradually separated from other drinking utensils. During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, metal utensils including tea drinking utensils appeared in China. In the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the production of metal utensils reached its peak.

In the mid-1980s, a set of gold-plated tea set offered by Tang Xizong was unearthed from Famen Temple in Fufeng, Shaanxi Province, which is a rare treasure among metal tea sets. But since the Song Dynasty, the ancients had different views on metal tea sets. After the Yuan Dynasty, especially since the Ming Dynasty, with the innovation of tea, the change of tea drinking methods and the rise of ceramic tea sets, metal tea sets gradually disappeared, especially tea sets made of tin, iron, lead and other metals, which were regarded as making tea with water, so that few people used them. However, metal tea storage vessels, such as tin bottles and tin cans, are not uncommon. This is because metal tea containers have better sealing performance than paper, bamboo, wood, porcelain and pottery. And has better moisture-proof and anti-rotation optical properties, which is more conducive to the preservation of loose tea. Therefore, tea storage containers made of tin are still popular in the world.

Exquisite tea set decoration space

For many people, tea and coffee are not only simple thirst-quenching drinks, but also a beautiful connection in life. For people who pay attention to the quality of living in the room, the collection of coffee cups and various tea sets is another way to decorate the space. Generally speaking, cups can have different styles according to different uses. For example, Italy's special coffee cups are smaller and narrower to retain the strong coffee flavor. The rim of the red tea cup is wider, which allows the tea to stretch and enjoy the beauty of the tea. The average coffee cup has a capacity of about 200-230 ml, while the coffee and milk cups used for breakfast in Europe and America are shaped like mugs and have a larger capacity. It is best to choose a simple light color system for the inner wall of the coffee cup, so that the cup can set off the color of the coffee. The material of the cup can be divided into pottery and porcelain, and the insulation effect of the two is similar. Bone China cups on the market contain animal ashes, which have excellent thermal insulation effect, but they are rarely used by ordinary families. Decorating the living room with cups can not only put the cups on the dining table and coffee table, but also put them in complete sets in transparent cabinets, or combine several groups of different cups with fresh fruits, exquisite flowers and gorgeous tablecloths in different colors and textures, so that you can have a good mood of drinking tea and coffee.