FULU TEA SET

Different cultures developed their own identities and symbolisms based on individual culture backgrounds. In Chinese many symbols came from the homophones. The Chinese have a strong tendency to associate similar sounding words. An example of this connection is the calabash. Calabash, or bottle gourd, has a homophone with the word of good fortune in Chinese. Later on the Chinese applied calabash as a symbol for good fortune. Many people believe having a calabash at home could bring good fortune... However, the calabashes were only just used to be a decoration instead of having any function. This project is to combine the symbolism of calabash and the habit of tea drinking into a set of designed teaware. This thesis study will apply results of research of cultural symbolism on calabash to design teaware. The goal is to construct a new tea-drinking experience by building culture symbolism features to existing teaware in order to enrich cultural connotation.