Marino Sheep Tea Pet

Marino Sheep Tea Pet, hand-pinched pottery sheep for the tea tray

A tea pet is a small unglazed clay figure that lives on the tea tray and gets fed with leftover tea, and the Marino Sheep Tea Pet is a very round one, walnut-sized, mostly fleece with a small worried face. It's pinched by hand in Jingdezhen from plain pottery clay, with no glaze and no paint, so the white, sandy khaki or chocolate brown is the clay itself. A sheep felt like the right tea pet for a Tasmanian table, given how much of this island is wool country.

Fleece is scratched into the wet clay line by line before firing, so the curls sit a little differently on every piece. The googly eyes go on one at a time, so no two sheep share an expression; ours have been leaning worried. Each time we brew, we pour a little spent tea over it. The bare clay drinks it in, and over many sessions the surface may slowly take on the colour of your tea, with the paler sheep showing it soonest. Keeping it dry and mildly concerned is a respectable option as well.

Product details

• Size: about 3.5 × 3.5 cm
• Material: unglazed pottery clay, hand-pinched in Jingdezhen
• Colours: white, sandy khaki or chocolate brown, picked at random when we pack your order
• Handmade: shape, fleece and expression vary, so the photos are a guide rather than the exact sheep you'll receive

This works well for

• Something small to take home from Tasmania that isn't lavender or whisky
• Keeping company with a pot of black tea, whose darker liquor tends to show on pale clay sooner
• A first tea pet for someone just setting up a tray
• Tucking into a card or a tea gift as a surprise extra

It sits with the rest of our tea pets at our Salamanca Tea Bar in Hobart, where you can pick the face you like.

Understanding tea pets

The habit is simple. After each steep, whatever tea is left in the pot or the fairness cup goes over the pet rather than down the drain. It takes a few seconds, and the figure slowly keeps a record of every pot.

Care

Rinse it or pour tea over it and let it air dry. No soap.

Shipping

Ships from Hobart, Tasmania. Free shipping on orders over $95 Australia-wide. We wrap the sheep in tissue and pad the box so it travels well.

Related

Tea Pet collection