Chinese Painting Tea Towel

Chinese painting tea towel for the gongfu tray

This Chinese painting tea towel is a small, thick cotton cloth for the tea table, printed on one side with a classical Chinese painting. You use it to wipe the base of the pot before you pour, catch the drips off the fairness cup, and dry the tray between rounds. It isn't a kitchen towel and it isn't sized like one.

At about 29 x 15.5cm it folds twice and sits beside the tray without taking over. The cotton is long-staple and thick enough to take a full pour without going through to the table, with the edge bound in a dark thread. The printed side faces up when the cloth is at rest; the plain pile underneath does the actual work.

The paintings

The designs are taken from Song and Tang dynasty works that most people in China would recognise on sight:

• Auspicious Cranes (Rui He Tu), cranes circling a palace roof, attributed to Emperor Huizong
• Listening to the Qin (Ting Qin Tu), a scholar playing under a pine, also Huizong
• A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains (Qian Li Jiang Shan Tu), Wang Ximeng's blue-green landscape
• Five Oxen (Wu Niu Tu), Han Huang's five oxen in a row
• Autumn Flowers in a Vase (Dan Ping Qiu Hui Tu), a quiet still life on pale ground

Choose the painting when you add to cart. Stock rotates, so a design that shows as sold out will be back with the next batch.

Product details

• Size: about 29 x 15.5cm
• Material: long-staple cotton
• Finish: printed on one side, plain pile on the other, bound edge
• Design: your choice of the five paintings above, one per cloth

This works well for

• Wiping the base of a teapot or gaiwan before each pour
• Drying the tray and catching drips from the fairness cup
• A small gift to go with a gaiwan or a Yixing pot
• Rolling up in a travel tea set

The towels are rolled in a basket at our Salamanca Tea Bar in Hobart, so if you'd like to choose the painting yourself, come in and pick one.

Using it

Wash it before the first use; the printing gives off a little colour on the first rinse and then stops. Keep one cloth for wiping pots and a separate one for the tray, since a cloth used on the tray picks up grit that can mark a soft clay pot.

Care

Cold hand wash, no bleach, line dry. It will soften and get more absorbent over the first few washes. Tea stains on the plain side are normal and won't wash out; that's what it's for.

Shipping

Ships from Hobart, Tasmania. Free shipping on orders over $95 Australia-wide. It goes out rolled, in a flat padded mailer.

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Tea Accessories · Tea Wares · Gifts Under $25