What’s a Cha Hai? It is a serving pitcher used in gongfu style brewing. After you steep your tea in a nice gaiwan or small pot, you pour the tea into the cha hai, and from there, serve the tea.
Here’s a video from Verdant Tea for more explanation of chinese tea ceremony gear.
(isn’t Verdant’s Videos always so calming?)
Anyways, though most of my tea sessions are just for me (and stuff Owls), I use the pitcher as a vessel to strain the tea, have another infusion on stand-by to drink, and when I’m drinking out of small cups. When I get the odd person who joins me for tea, and I got my gaiwan going, I always use the cha hai so we get the same tasting cup of tea. Also, the pitcher looks pretty cool for blog photos, heh!
I purchased a glass cha hai with my gaiwan, both coming from YunnanSourcing.us. Later on, I bought a strainer to go with my cha hai from Mandala Tea.
I love the glass cha hai, but knowing my track record for breaking tea pots, I began looking for a more durable pitcher. Most of the cha hai pitchers I’ve seen come in glass, white or yixing clay colours, so I was hoping to find a nice colourful one!
Anyways, I saw some really cool colourful similar shaped items at IKEA online, but they were too big as they were actually gravy boats. However, I finally found a pitcher at World Market Cost Plus.
I did find this with the tea sets in the store, however I think this item is actually a creamer pitcher. It also had matching 25oz tea pot and large cups. (Too bad no matching gaiwan, right?) Either way, I love it! The pitcher feels sturdy, great colourful glaze, and it was pretty cheap!
It turns out it holds 200ml, just like my glass cha hai! Score! Actually, it’s pretty much the same shape and size too.
So, if you are looking for a cha hai, totally check out creamer-vessels. I saw some for even cheaper ($2-$3) that were plain white.
Yes, my tea set up is all mis-matched and random. I like to save money more, which I use to buy more important things like more tea!
Off to enjoy my oolong while rocking out to Devin Townsend <3
