What is Tea Holders (Cha He)?
Tea holders is a kind of Chinese folk tea making tea wares. It is one of the six utensil of the tea ceremony. It is a utensil for holding dry tea leaves and put the tea leaves into teapot. It is mostly an opening hemispherical shape. And usually made of bamboo, wood, pottery, porcelain, tin, etc. It is like a lotus leaf, and its shape mostly is hemispherical mouth, often used in sado for guests to appreciate dry tea. Tea holder is good tea art as well as tea craft, both functional and artistic.
The tea holders (Cha He) is a kind of tea utensils of Han dynasty, which is also one of six function of tea ceremony, using to place the dry tea waited to brew. All which is could be used as a tea utensil for placing tea, but tea holder also has the higher value of appreciating tea. And in the tea art performance, we often use it to enjoy tea.
The shape of tea holders is mostly in hemispherical with a mouth, using for appreciating the structure of dry tea. In fact tea holder also has a lot of alias. Of course, it is often referred as appreciative tea holder. The material of tea holder is also diversely. It could be made by bamboo, wood, ceramic, and the porcelain. The most generally seen is the white porcelain tea holder.
Using tea holders to move tea leaves from tea caddy into teapot. After be putted into, it could be used to appreciate the color and shape of tea leaves. And on the basis of evaluating the quality of tea leaves and brewing method. Then putting into the teapot. Actually, the good porcelain tea holder itself is handicraft, which is both practical and can be as works of art, together with tea appreciation. Just as said that kill two birds with one stone. In addition, there are also someone prefer to slightly crush tea leaves to increase the thicker of tea water.
Why Use the Tea Holders (Cha He)?
For convenience, most people will directly grab the tea leaves out of the bag with their hands. The sweat on the hands or the hand cream smeared will stain the tea. Even they wash their hands and wait until their hands are dry, it will still affect the tea leaves. It is necessary to avoid touch the tea with your hand directly. So tea holder can slightly avoid peculiar smell to the tea. Of course, there is a certain requirement for tea holders, it should be kept dry and clean.
Mainly to appreciate tea, but also used in these ways: temporarily contain the dry tea being taken out of teapot; and after people enjoy the color and shape of the tea, the tea would be put into the teapot. Besides, people also slightly crush tea in tea holder, in order to increase the concentration of liquid.
The Feature of Tea Holders (Cha He)
Tea tasting is a very elegant artistic enjoyment. Moving tea from a tea caddy to a teapot is very careful, carefully like “Daughter Married”. The tea holders play an important role in tea brewing.
The tea holders also has the following functions: after hold the tea leaves, people can appreciate the color and shape of tea, and then evaluate the brewing method and the amount of tea, and then pour the tea leaves into the teapot.
Besides, some people will slightly crush the tea in the tea holders to increase the concentration of the tea soup. High quality porcelain tea holders are handicraft, but it is a pity many tea houses do not use it.
How to Select Tea Holders (Cha He)
The best choice is to buy porcelain tea holder, better setting off the nature and the color of tea. If there is no tea holder during family tea drinking, hard texture of cardboard folded can be made in the shape of tea holder instead.
The Style of Tea Holders (Cha He)
Tea holders can be divided into the following style according to the material.
1. Bamboo
In the tea ceremony, bamboo and wood tea sets play a supporting role. But when it comes to bamboo and wood tea wares, tea holders is the first supporting role. Bamboo is a fibrous structure, the outer layer is fine and hard. The material of bamboo is thick, so when making tea props, it is necessary to leave the inside and keep the outside as much as possible to show the beauty of the material.
2. Silver or Copper
In the history of the development of silver and copper as a material for tea sets, most of the tea wares were handmade, especially silver and copper teapots, tea holders, tea caddy, etc. These handmade silver and copper teawares are not only popular in high officials and nobles in history, but also pursued by the upper class in modem life. They are still a symbol of identity.
3. Wood
The tea holders made of hard herbs, such as fir, broad-leaved wood , has a highly value of use and appreciation.
4. Jade
Nowadays, most of the tea holders made of jade is immeasurable, so it has infinite value-added, which is the key goal of collection.
5. Ceramics
Ceramics tea holders, is made of clay by kneading and forming. It is the first time that human beings use chemical changes to change natural properties. Now they are mostly used for collection.
6. Porcelain
Porcelain tea holders is made of feldspar, kaolin and quartz, which is hard, compact and clean, and has low water absorption.
How to Use the Tea Holders?(Cha He)
1. When putting tea into the tea holder, your hand cannot touch the gap of the tea holder, so as to keep the tea clean and sanitary.
2. When you hold the tea holder, hold the two sides with your thumb and the other four fingers, hold the bottom of the tea holder with the other hand, invite guests to enjoy tea.
3. When brewing tea, the tea holder should be placed on the tea table next to the tea tray.
4. If there not tea holder, you can use hard cardboard fold into the shape of Tea holder to replace it.