I’ve never been a big tea drinker, preferring coffee ever since I started college and started abusing caffeine as a way of staying up later to finish those pesky essays. As I’ve grown older though I have started to appreciate the delicacies of tea, the different blends and tastes, particularly since a trip to Japan. In Japan, tea is a real art form and after tasting a cup of delicate green tea in a traditional ryokan or japanese inn, served with a traditional sweet, I was hooked.

There are many artisan tea shops in Japan, with some frighteningly expensive tea varieties, but I did not feel intimidated walking in. Customer service is everything to the japanese and every customer entering into this little shop was welcomed with a hearty “Irasshaimase!” (welcome) as one of the numerous staff ran over with little taster cup of tea. I happened to be in Japan during cherry blossom season and this particular tea was green tea infused with cherry blossom petals – a subtle delicate perfumed taste. I ended up purchasing several packets of the tea which reminded me of springtime in Japan back in the dreary UK for many months.

After buying my tea I quickly realised that I wanted an authentic Japanese tea set to go with it. It as clear to me that drinking this beautiful tea from the chunky mugs I was used to back home would just not taste the same! As well as flavour, the japanese place a lot of emphasis on presentation and most families will own several tea sets which are appropriate for the season. It would be unthinkable to serve a cup of tea in the spring in a teacup with an autumn theme!

I headed off to the Kappabashi-Dori district of Tokyo which is famous for supplying restaurants with their tableware as well as the freakishly realistic plastic food that you will see displayed outside of every restaurant in japan. This is a great place to stock up on tableware if you are visiting japan and is also unbelievably cheap. You can spend a whole morning just looking through the shops and marvelling at the range available. The plastic display food is actually quite expensive but many shops offer smaller cheaper versions as souvenirs for tourists – I picked up a couple of plastic sushi keychains as gifts to give my family back home.

The tea set I eventually chose was a simple neutral design. Many tea sets include designs that reflect the season such as cherry blossom flowers or autumnal leaves but I decided to choose a plain colour. Japanese tea pots are round and squat with a stick handle off out to the side, rather than the curved and centred handle we are used to in the west. The tea cups do not have handles which I found difficult to get used to at first but actually ensures that your tea is at the perfect drinking temperature before you pick it up. After all, blowing on your tea would surely spoil the beauty of the tea drinking ritual!

Several years later and I still use my japanese tea set regularly, taking pleasure in steeping the loose tea in its little pot and pouring it into the handleless cups. It really does transport me back to japan and makes the tea taste all that better, whether it is authentic Japanese cherry blossom tea or a cheap blend from the supermarket.

Of course not everyone is lucky enough to be able to travel to japan in person to buy a tea set. Luckily the internet makes worldwide shopping simple and it is easy to buy a tea pot and tea cups in japan and have them shipped straight to your door, wherever you happen to live in the world. If you’d like to invite that little bit of japanese zen into your daily life, I would advise you to make tea drinking a daily habit, just like the japanese do!