Tea Tides

Tea is an old love for me. I have been researching fine china dinnerware and teacups in particular for almost 20 years. I came to think of the politics around tea after my trip to India in 2007. Tea (chai) is a constant part of life there, but come to find out, a recent one. India did not adopt regular tea drinking until after their independence from England in 1947, prior to that they grew almost tea crops primarily for export. It is impossible to imagine India without a cup of chai. And one of my most vivid memories is driving chai from a bhar cup in a Kolkata train station. Bhar are the first disposable cups, made from Ganges clay, they are barely bisque fired. You drink your chai from them then throw them to the floor where they break and eventually turn back into mud.

The tea wallpaper shows the striations of tea hills in blue to reference the over sea shipping of the tea. Bhar cups bob in the waves holding tea seedlings. Here I was thinking of the beautiful children’s book “Teacup” by Rebecca Young. In it a boy has to leave his home country in a boat. He can take almost nothing with him. One of the things he has is a teacup with soil from his home land and a seed that grows into a tree on his sea voyage.