Cardew Club News » 2008 » May

According to legend, during the Qing Dynasty around the year of 1725, there was a tea farmer, Wei Yin, in Anxi County who was very diligent about growing a tea bush. Wei Yin also believed in Guanyin, which is a Bodhisattva in Buddhism. He showed his devotion by enshrining a statue of Guanyin at home and worshiping with a cup of clear tea every day at dawn and dusk. His custom lasted more than 10 years.

Research into tea and its health properties has been growing each year. We’ve been hearing about tea’s powerful antioxidants (known collectively as flavonoids) that can help keep the heart healthy.
Scientists think that the tea flavonoids work by relaxing blood vessels allowing blood to flow more evenly, or by keeping the arteries “flexible” and elastic.

The amount and type of flavonoids in tea depends on the variety, the amount of tea used in the pot or cup, and how long you brew it for. They are present in similar amounts in black (regular) and green teas but not in herbal infusions which are not made from the camellia sinensis tea plant.

Craft Alliance’s biennial teapot exhibition is one of the institution’s most popular events. This year, the show includes more than 80 clay teapots made by more than 60 potters.

The pots were chosen by master potter Fong Choo, who invited 20 artists and chose the rest from submissions. “I selected the works based on four criteria: strong form, great craftsmanship, skill in handling the medium and attention to detail,” Choo said. Potters from all over the country are featured.

In addition to being more or less functional — some of the pots might frustrate users — all the pots were required to fit within a 10-by-10-inch box.

Today, people seem content to interact by way of increasingly impersonal technologies — now old-fashioned phone calls have given way to e-mails, text messages and instant message conversations. As much as most of us now depend on these technologies to make plans and keep in touch with distant friends and family, there’s an argument to be made that these interactions are a pale shadow of real, face-to-face conversations.

The perfect antidote to the complexities and barriers of modern life is an afternoon spent engaging in a ritual that is inefficient, un-modern and purely frivolous — the British tradition of high tea.