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We break for tea in Hong Kongby Jeri QuinzioAt some point during a visit to busy, bustling Hong Kong, you'll feel as if you have to escape to a place of tranquility, to feel calm. That's when to go to Hong Kong Park, a green oasis in the heart of the city. There you can visit an aviary that houses birds of every feather, stroll through a spectacular conservatory, take your kids to a playground and, best of all, visit the Flagstaff House Museum of Teaware. The Museum building once housed the officers of "Her Britannic Majesty's Land Force in China," according to a plaque on its facade. Today, the two-story white building with chocolate brown shutters and wide verandahs is the oldest Western-style building in Hong Kong and an excellent example of colonial architecture. Paintings show that when it was built in 1844, Flagstaff House commanded the hillside overlooking Hong Kong Harbor. But that was when Hong Kong was a sleepy port, not a modern city of soaring buildings. Now the museum building is dwarfed by high-rises including I.M. Pei's Bank of China building. And it houses delicate porcelain tea bowls and clay tea pots instead of the defenders of an empire. Visiting the museum today gives you a chance to be quiet and reflective, and to understand the place of tea in China and elsewhere over the centuries. Exhibits show that tea has been a medicine, a soup, an offering to deities and ancestors and a gift to a bride before marriage. By the Tang dynasty, 618--907, it was widely drunk as a beverage and thought to be good for digestion and for the brain. Early teas were mixed with ingredients like leeks, ginger, mint, dates, dogwood, orange peel and salt. Flowers used to scent teas included orchids, cassia, orange blossoms, water lilies and roses. One of the most unusual teas was made in Tibet. The directions begin:"Make cheese." the cheese was mixed with salt and tea, heated and served. Some people believe the custom of dim sum -- that multi-course meal of everything from savories to sweets, served with pots and pots of tea -- originated in Mongolia where tea was accompanied by walnuts, pine nuts, sesame seeds, almonds and chestnuts. Over the course of centuries, tea preparation evolved from boiling blocks of tea to whisking powdered tea with bamboo brushes (the technique now used in the Japanese tea ceremony) to today's steeped tea. In early times, tea was boiled until the bubbles looked like "fish eyes," or until it sounded like "wind blowing through pine trees," according to museum graphics. The earliest teapots held just one or two cups of tea. Later, they were made larger for convenience, but when people discovered that holding tea in a pot made for bitter tea, small pots made a comeback. The museum displays include celadon, cloisonné and decorated porcelain tea ware, teapots encased in pewter or silver and the familiar blue and white export ware. There is a collection of ethereal white porcelain tea bowls, one for each month of the year, decorated with seasonal flowers. The stars of the museum, though, are the famed Yixing teapots which originated during the late Ming dynasty )17th century). Made from the purple, dark red, brown or yellow clay of Yixing in Jiangsu province, each one is stamped with the seal or signature of the potter who made it.
During the 1950s and '60s, politics dictated that instead of being stamped with the seal of the individual potter, the pots should bear the impersonal seal of the town of Yixing. In the 1970s, the individual potter's seal came back into use. Today, connoisseurs and collectors recognize the styles of highly regarded potters and pay thousands of dollars for their pots, particularly for very old ones. Contemporary pots by well-known artists are also expensive, but you can buy signed teapots by less famous potters for about $50. The museum shop has Yixing pots, stamped with the potter's seal, at competitive prices. It also sells teas, prints of old Hong Kong and other unique gifts. A few words of advice: If you want to go to the museum, call ahead to make sure it will be open. The guidebooks aren't necessarily accurate about its schedule. And if your trip to the museum makes you thirst for a cup of delicate jasmine tea served in a Yixing pot, don't go to the restaurant in Hong Kong Park. If you do, you'll be served a plain pot filled with hot water, and a Lipton tea bag. Flagstaff
Museum of Tea Ware Copyright: Jeri Quinzio Photo credit: Douglas S. MacLeod |
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Yixing
pots owe their beauty to their simple, graceful shapes and restrained
decoration. The small clay pots are shaped like flower petals or a pear, like a
monk's cap, a melon or a bundle of bamboo. Some are perfectly plain. Others are
incised with calligraphy. A frog perches on the lid of an otherwise unadorned
pot. The top of another pot is formed to look like it's wrapped in cloth.
Yixing pots are also practical, being said to retain the color, flavor and
aroma of tea better than others.