Teaware by region

Every country drinks tea its own way and makes its own teaware to match. The Japanese kyusu, the Korean dagwan and the Russian samovar grew out of very different habits.

In Japan and Korea people drink mostly green tea, and the teaware is built around it. Loose leaf goes into a kyusu, a small teapot with a side handle and a strainer inside. Clay kyusu come from Tokoname and Banko, both made of iron-rich clay fired without glaze, which turns red in Tokoname and a purplish brown in Banko. Matcha is whisked in a wide chawan bowl, and chanoyu needs about ten more pieces beside it, from the bamboo chasen whisk to the kama kettle. In Korea the leaf is brewed in a dagwan teapot, the water is cooled in a sukwu bowl, and the cups are celadon, buncheong or Joseon white porcelain.

Europe and Russia started with imports: ships brought Jingdezhen porcelain and red Yixing teapots with the tea. Around 1678–1680 Delft potters began copying the Yixing pots. Saxony produced its own hard-paste porcelain in 1708, the Meissen factory opened two years later, and Spode had bone china by about 1800. A British table put a big Brown Betty teapot of Staffordshire clay next to a jug of hot water, a caddy and a strainer. In Russia the water was heated in a samovar. The first record of one dates to 1740, at the Irginsky works in the Urals, and Tula has made samovars since 1778.