The Tea Set and Tea Culture Exhibition opened recently in Suzhou Museum. The display contains over 100 typical tea sets spanning different time periods, varieties and quality from Zhenjiang Museum and Suzhou Museum. Tourists can better appreciate the delicacy of Chinese ancient tea sets and the essence of Chinese tea culture.

China is the first country to plant, make and drink tea. The earliest records of drinking tea and buying tea are Shennong’s tasting of all kinds of flora and in writer Wang Bao’s works in the Western Han Dynasty (206BC – AD24). In the Eastern and Western Jin Dynasty (AD 265-420), scholars and bureaucrats regarded drinking tea as an elegant social activity. Tea-drinking customs prevailed nationwide in the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907).

 In the Song Dynasty (960-1279), the popularity of drinking tea manifested itself in the great number of tea shops and tea houses and the wide variety of tea sets. Later on, tea became a necessity, and drinking tea became an all-pervasive lifestyle. Since ancient times, the southern region of the Yangtze River has been an important area for planting tea. The natural and cultural conditions have cultivated a rich tea culture in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. In past dynasties, tea went hand in hand with social life.

Holding key positions in ancient land and water transportation, Zhenjiang and Suzhou were prosperous in tea and tea set collection, distribution and transaction, leaving a precious tea culture and numerous tea-making tools and tea sets.