A TEA SET THAT CONNECTS CULTURES
As early as during the 17th century, the Dutch East Indian
Company VOC introduced tea to our country. And yet there is
not much of a tea-drinking culture in the Netherlands. Something
which the different groups of immigrants do have. Each group
has its own customs. Sarah de Ruijter sees tea as something to
connect people: serving tea is a marker of hospitality and mutual
respect. She has designed a tea set in which Turkish, Moroccan,
Chinese, Polish, Surinamese and Indonesian elements combine
to form a new tea drinking culture. With copper and porcelain as
common factors, this set subtly displays characteristics from six
different cultures. Fusion allows the user to keep up traditional
rituals or to invent a completely new tea ceremony.