Tea Utensils Represented on the Tomb Mural Paintings of Foreign Exchange Countries with Koryo Dynasty

Abstract

The present study addresses the tea utensils and tea drinking methods seen in tomb mural paintings of Song, Liao, Jin, and Yuan, which were Koryo's foreign exchange countries. The paintings illustrate the pointing tea method, which was popular during dynasty times. Tea utensils observed in the paintings include a tea mill, mill stone, and tea pestle necessary for making cake tea into powder. The tea stove and boiling bottle are depicted as being required to boil water. Some mural works vividly depict how a tea drinker pours hot water from a boiling bottle into a cup with a stand, mixes it with a tea spoon, and whisks tea powder for foaming with a tea whisk. The tea drinking method of the Southern race Han is also similarly described in the tomb mural paintings of Liao, Jin, and Yuan from Northern nomads. The distribution of tea culture had an enormous influence on the development of tea utensil manufacturing methods. The significance of this study is that these findings can be used as basic data to provide food culture insights into Koryo celadon tea utensils.