Chinese tea · chrome, iridescence, one real leaf
Thirty-four Chinese teas held inside rendered liquid metal: mirrored folds, iridescent rims and clear amber liquor, with the dry leaf left as a photograph.
3 teas · 3 categories
Two surfaces are set against each other and asked to explain each other. Chrome is perfectly smooth, reflects whatever surrounds it and has no colour of its own; the leaf is matte, absorbs light and is made almost entirely of colour and break. Chrome also does something useful for tea: a mirrored shell shows liquor the way a lens does, so the amber of a ripe pu-erh and the pale yellow of a longjing become readable volumes instead of flat swatches. The iridescence is kept to the rim, one thin band, so it marks an edge rather than tinting the object. The tea is never generated — it is photographed and the metal is built around the photograph, which is why the leaf edges stay crisp while the shell blurs. Everything else is removed, into white or into one gradient, because two surfaces are already enough to look at.