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Tea pets aresmall ceramic figurines or ornaments. These items may serve different purposes, such as bringing luck, be a companion to the tea drinker, or simply for decoration. Each of these purposes will be discussed in detail in this article. Before that, let鈥檚 first understand what tea pets really are. What is a Tea Pet
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What is a tea pet used for?
Although not limited to animals, tea pets are small clay figures used during gong fu cha for various purposes. Although tea masters mostly use them as decoration, some also have them for good luck.
What are the different types of tea pets?
These are most commonly pigs, toads, elephants, dragons, as well as certain Buddhist characters. There are also other purposes for these little statues. One of these include checking if the water is hot enough throughout the ceremony. For this purpose, the 鈥減ee-pee boy鈥?is by far the most popular tea pet.
What is a clay tea pet?
Clay tea pets originated way back in Yixing during the Yuan dynasty, 13th century China. Yixing is well known for its clay ( zisha) and the teaware made from it. Similar to the zisha teapots, the little creatures made of yixing clay are porous and unglazed.
What is a pig tea pet?
For example, in Chinese culture a pig represents good luck and happiness in life and you鈥檒l notice there are a variety of pig tea pets available. My first ever tea pet was this meditating Buddha that was successfully found at ZhenTea鈥檚 booth at the 2015 Toronto Tea Festival. It鈥檚 the perfect example of a tea pet that is purely aesthetic.