Workshops and Projects » kung fu cha dao new perspectives on chinese tea culture

 

Info

Period
23 Apr 2012 - 29 Jun 2012
Initiator
Köln International School of Design (KISD)
Partners
Köln International School of Design (KISD)
Shih-Shien University (SCID)

Picking Tea Leaves

Women picking tea leaves at a plantation in the mountains.

Cultivation, farming, harvesting, processing, preparation and consumption of tea has a long history in Mainland China, but a short and intense history in Taiwan, especially in Taipeh. By observing, researching and analysing those issues we are looking at unique characteristics, by analysing the respective context we are aiming at approaching a cultural understanding of this important topic in Taiwan. Kung fu cha dao would be literally translated as "skilled tea method", but to rephrase it, "the way of making tea with great skill" seems to be more appropriate. In Taipeh, there are high-end tea shops like, traditional ceremonies in different settings and more than 30 different bottled tea drinks offered everywhere. Taiwan is also the origin of the world famous, trendy bubble tea.
During this project, we are spending at least two weeks in Taipeh (and the surrounding) to see cultivation, handcraft, old cereminies and new popular tea cultures. Seen from the perspective of design, we want to explore new design opportunities - both in Taiwan and Germany as two very different cultural contexts. Maybe we are coming up with a new way of tea ceremony, tea shop, tea brand, tea drinking behaviour, tools for preparing and drinking tea etc.
We will make use of some of the methods of the Cultural Library - so some of the outcomes in this project will als go into this ongoing project.
Students participating in this project need to subscribe very soon - as we are having a first meeting to talk about the schedule, financial matters (students need to invest some money for the trip). We will be in Taiwan between April 23 and May 5 - and we hope to have a professor and some students from our partner university SCID here in June. The project will be supported by former KISD student Adam Wallat - being very experienced with Taiwanese culture and Taipeh.

Value Chain Analysis

The taiwanese tea culture belongs to the most famous ones on our planet. Tea trees are native to Taiwan, and tea was likely used by the aboriginal inhabitants as a medicinal plant. A developed tea culture was introduced to Taiwan by the earliest waves of Chinese immigrants from Fujian province. At this time, the 17th century, tea was used as a beverage and was also considered as a food with medicinal... more

Product Dimension - Tools & Equipment

“Kung Fu Cha Dao”, the skillful way of tea preparation, is a complex procedure that requires a lot of knowledge and years of experience of a tea master on one hand. On the other hand it involves a considerable amount of tools and equipment.
The aim of our research was to investigate how the knowledge of the tea master – in particular knowledge regarding steeping time – is being incorporated into products.... more

Tea Spaces Traditional

As drinking tea is a bigger part of Taiwanese culture, encountering spaces where tea is being served is a lot easier than in Germany. Different consumer requirements are covered through a wide variety of spaces which make the consumption of tea common in daily. After collecting and categorising research questions we narrowed down the subjects to develop a starting-position with two main research... more

Tea Brands

At the very beginning of the Kung Fu Cha Dao Project we started to look for reasonable questions which would form the field of interest for our research on perspectives of chinese tea culture.

Looking for an essential topic we focused on taiwanese tea brands market and packaging. The aim was to analyse distinctive ways to communicate through packaging and brand appearance tea value in such an ancient... more

Tea Spaces Take away

As drinking tea is a bigger part of Taiwanese culture, encountering spaces where tea is being served is a lot easier than in Germany. Different consumer requirements are covered through a wide variety of spaces which make the consumption of tea common in daily. After collecting and categorising research questions we narrowed down the subjects to develop a starting-position with two main research... more