A style study — not a real store, not affiliated with Sasha Vinogradova · more
Draft — 3 of 34 teas designed in this style. Ask us to finish it
Sasha Vinogradova tea cabinet

Chinese tea · gilt frames, camellia, one shaft of light

One shaft of light, and the rest goes to varnish

Thirty-four Chinese teas arranged as painted still lifes: gilt frames, camellia in flower, a herbarium label in copperplate, and one warm light on the bowl.

A bowl of pu-erh liquor and a brass dish of leaf lit from one side inside a gilt frame wreathed in white and red camellia

Seven categories, seven still lifes

3 teas · 3 categories

OolongOolong1 teaRed tea (hongcha)Red tea (hongcha)1 teaPu-erhPu-erh1 tea

Wear the cabinet

All tees and hoodies →

Wear — Da Jin Ya Shu Pu-erhDa Jin Ya Shu Pu-erhWear — Diān Hóng Yě ShēngDiān Hóng Yě ShēngWear — Nǎi Xiāng OolongNǎi Xiāng Oolong

Why this shop is painted rather than photographed

A still life is an argument about attention: a few objects, one light, and a long look. That is close to how tea is actually drunk, so the page is built as a cabinet rather than a shelf — a frame, a wreath, a bowl, a dish of leaf, and darkness around them. Camellia belongs here by botany and not by mood, since the tea plant is a camellia and the flowers in the border are the same genus as the leaf in the dish. The herbarium label carries the plant's name in handwriting, the way a collector would have written it, and it is the only place on the page where a human hand shows. Gold and oxblood are held to the frame so the liquor stays the warmest thing inside it. Cracked varnish is the reminder that these things were kept rather than bought.