The Tang Dynasty is one of the strongest dynasties in China’s history. The culture of tea was also developed in this prosperous dynasty.

Tea was a fashion in the Tang Court. The Tao of Tea required exquisite tea equipment. The tea containers had a big development with its classifications, design and production. 

The Tea Saint LuYu in his monumental book the ‘Classic of Tea’ listed twenty-eight types of tea equipment for different tea ceremonial procedures. A whole set of tea equipment was excavated in the Tang Dynasty FaMen Temple recently. This includes tea equipment for brew and drinking made from gold, silver, glass and porcelain. One of them is a barrel-like basket waved with gold and silver wires, used with a pagoda-shaped lid decorated by gold beads. It is used as a basket for the compressed tea bricks. Another salt container was designed as a lotus, with its stem and blossom made from silver gilded in gold. Everything is exquisite and beautiful in this tea set. 

Of course, the main material of tea equipment was still porcelain in the Sui and Tang Dynasty. It is called celadon in the South and white in the North, according to the color of the porcelain. There were several famous celadon kilns in South China such as the Ou Kiln, YueZhou Kiln, ChangSha Kiln, Qiong Kiln. The best production was called MiSe porcelain and was used by the royal family only. Ordinary people were forbidden to use it. There were also very good white porcelain kilns such as the Xin Kiln and Qu Yang Kiln. The “Classic of Tea” said that the Xin Kiln porcelain was “as white as snow and silver”.

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