Tea tray
Simplified 茶盘
The tray that carries the whole gongfu set. In Taiwan, rectangular trays of metal, wood or bamboo, some with drainage, were popular in the 1970s and 1980s and spread to mainland China in the 1990s; by the 2010s many Taiwanese practitioners had replaced them with a shallow pot stand (壺承).
On this page
- 1Body
- 2Drainage
- 3Base
Form#
- Body
- 1either a wide, shallow circular porcelain dish (傳統圓茶盤) or a rectangular two-layer box tray (雙層長方茶盤) in bamboo, hardwood, metal, or carved stone with a slotted upper deck (漏水面板)
- Drainage
- 2internal pull-out catch pan or a corner drain spout (排水口) connected by a silicone tube to a waste bucket beneath the table
- Base
- 3four corner bracket feet (四足) on rectangular trays, or a wide ring foot on circular porcelain dishes
- Handle
- none, or recessed finger grips cut into the short ends
In use#
- In wet gongfu brewing (濕泡法), the pot, tea boat, pitcher, and four to six cups sit directly on the slotted deck of the tray, which collects all vessel-warming water and tea rinses.4
Capacity#
Ø 16.0–24.0 cm (round porcelain dish); W 30–60 × D 20–35 cm, 300–1,500 mL reservoir (rectangular tray)12. The late-Qing / early-Republic blue-and-white porcelain tray in the National Palace Museum, Taipei (青花萊菔紋茶盤, inv. 購瓷000462) measures H 3.8 cm, rim Ø 16.8 cm, and base Ø 13.0 cm.
Variants and sub-types#
| Name | 中文 | Difference | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| Round Porcelain or Metal Cup Tray (Gopan / Yuan Chapan) | 圓形瓷茶盤 / 哥盤 | Shallow circular dish with an upright lip in porcelain, crackle-glazed Ge-type stoneware (哥盤), tin, or brass, used in traditional Chaozhou and early Taiwanese gongfu tea solely to hold the tiny tasting cups arranged in a ring. | 25 |
| Two-tier Slatted Reservoir Tray (Chushui Chapan) | 雙層儲水式茶盤 | Rectangular wooden, bamboo, or ceramic box tray with a slatted or perforated upper deck over a removable catchment basin, popularized in 1980s Taiwanese tea-art centres to stage the entire wet-brewing set on one platform. | 134 |
| Direct-drain Stone or Wood Tray (Paishui Chapan) | 排水管石雕 / 原木茶盤 | Heavy slab carved from black 乌金石 (dolerite), Duan inkstone, or seasoned hardwood with shallow drainage channels leading to a concealed hose outlet that pipes wastewater to a bucket beneath the table. | 14 |
History#
- Qing to early Republic (1920s–1950s)In classical Chaozhou and Minnan gongfu tea, the 茶盤 is a shallow, flat-bottomed circular dish of porcelain, tin, or crackled Ge-style glaze that holds the three or four small cups in a crescent while hot rinse water is poured over them. Lian Heng's (連橫, 1878–1936) Tainan tea essay Mingtan (《茗談》) and poems praise crackled Ge-ware trays (哥盤), and Weng Huidong's 1957 Chaozhou Chajing specifies that a 茶盤 must be wide and flat-bottomed (「茶盤宜寬宜平」) so the cups sit steadily.235
- 1970s–1980sTaiwanese tea-art (茶藝) houses introduce large rectangular trays of stainless steel, wood, bamboo, or stone with slotted decks and drain tubes to hold the entire wet-brewing set (pot, tea boat, pitcher, and paired aroma/tasting cups); these trays spread throughout mainland China in the 1990s, where they are also called 茶海 ('tea sea').14
- 2000s–presentWith the rise of minimalist 'dry brewing' (乾泡法) on cloth runners (茶席), many Taiwanese practitioners replace the large slotted tray with a compact ceramic or metal pot stand (huchen) and a separate waste bowl (水方 / 茶盂).1
Attributions are shown as the source states them.
Sources#
Status and editorial notes sources cited
Sources are listed below. Their presence does not certify every claim; source-specific interpretations and unresolved questions are identified in the text. This page has not received independent expert approval.