Tea Peeps – I finally got a gong fu tea tray! I’ve wanted one since I got my first gaiwan!
I’ve been looking on and off for deals on tea trays. They tend to run up in price, especially if you want one that holds more than a cup or two. I wanted something bigger for Oolong Owl. I was checking amazon.com for tea trays, since I’ve seen yixing pots there, and a found a great price for a medium sized tray – $39.95!. However, I decided to look up the company and found their website. I purchased off the website as the shipping was a bit cheaper.
This tea tray is from Music City Tea, which is based in Tennessee – a US seller! A big perk here was since this was a US seller, I got my package in only a few days!
It arrived in a big box bubble wrapped. The Tea Owls were happy to help remove the bubble wrap.
Teal “pu’er pick” Owl also helped unwrapping the table!
Here is my red Gong Fu Tea Tray from Music City Tea! It is a medium sized tray, measuring at 17″ x 12″ x 3″. This size is for 5 to 8 people and comfortably fits a yixing pot, pitcher, tea turtle pet and 4 cups.
Lettering on the top.
There is a plastic tray that slides out from the bottom, with a spout that you can optionally hook a hose of some type to drain.
I did an oolong run with my table – a very intentionally messy gong fu tea session. My Turtle Tea Pet was happy to eat up all the tea!
The table did the job – most of the tea dropped into the plastic tray underneath. Some of it stayed on the tea try, that I mopped up after I was done my tea session.
The plastic tray did not leak, nor did any tea spill on the edges. I put the cap on the spout and it did not leak. The spout worked, but would be better with a hose-thing (I’ll have to figure out where to get that).
There are some cons to this gong fu tea tray, I guess it was a lot of “you get what you pay for” since this red Gong Fu Tea Tray was on the cheap side.
First off, the gong fu tea tray wasn’t perfect. The plastic tray had sharp corners. The wood wasn’t the greatest and should of had some more sanding. There is also a chip on one of the legs. One big con here is the tray wobbles a bit. Thankfully, my Tea-hating husband is a bit of a handyman, so he’s going to fix the wobble.
EDIT: I’ve been having issues with this tea table as it wasn’t finished correctly and started warping. I’ve retired it to be refinished.
In the end, this tea table has a number of flaws, but is a cheap price for a larger tea tray!
My red Gong Fu Tea Tray can also hold 6 Tea Owls!
