Chinese tea · read off a dial
The leaf sits where the dial face should be
Thirty-four Chinese teas mounted on riveted steel and ringed by a depth scale in amber stencil numerals, with the roast read off the gauge instead of described.
Chinese tea · read off a dial
Thirty-four Chinese teas mounted on riveted steel and ringed by a depth scale in amber stencil numerals, with the roast read off the gauge instead of described.
3 teas · 2 categories
Instrument panels are designed so one glance gives a number, and the whole shop is built on that idea: the roast, the altitude and the depth of flavour are put on scales rather than into adjectives. Steel, rivets and amber stencil exist because a gauge has to survive damp and be legible in bad light, which is also the condition of a working tea warehouse. Ringing the leaf with a metre scale makes the photograph the dial face, so the reader compares teas by where the needle sits instead of by how the copy is written. Amber on gunmetal is the only palette, since two more colours would break the illusion that the panel is one machined object. Serial and lot numbers stay printed because a tea worth grading is a tea worth tracing back to a pressing. The white version shows the same instrument with the metal removed, to prove the scale carries the sheet on its own.