Which Tea Table should I Order?

[Victoria]

I second that. The Andao one is great if you're in the bargain category.

Lol, yup that's what I was going for at first, but it's sold out.

btw Victoria, is that cup in your avatar yours? So precious

They seem to restock that one fairly often.

Re: my avatar - Yes I finally located the exact cup as my avatar in December after searching for it for a LONG time. (Thanks!)

[teaguy]

Does anyone notice that the swastika above points to the right, while the Nazi swastika points to the left? Seems trivial, but it's a different symbol, and the one above is used in Buddhist temples all over asia.

If you pick the first one, get a nice bowl or saucer to set next to it. When you're done, you dump the leaves onto the saucer or bowl so they're out of the way. With a bowl, you also don't need to worry about any moisture in the leaves running over your table.

For drain hoses, there is a bulb attachment you can add. It basically works as a suction pump. You squeeze the bulb, and it sucks any stuck leaf bits right through into the drain bucket. Not sure where to find those online though. Also, some trays come with a ball valve so you can shut off the water flow if you don't want to use the hose.

You might also consider getting a slab of your favorite hardwood, having it planed flat, then just use a tea boat or nice saucer under your teapot. It makes for a very nice effect, and can be very cheap (I make my own!)

Oh, yeah - at this point in my 'tea life' I'd probably get the first one, but I am VERY partial to bamboo, and if you like the 'box' style tea trays they're great to use. One other thing to keep in mind is the height of the tray you get. If you set it up on a regular (dining) table, you may find that your tea ware sits a bit too high for comfortable brewing. My experience with similar bamboo boxes has been that a coffee table, or just flat on my tatamis works very well.

Good luck with your decision making. If you can't make up your mind, do the economy a favor and buy all of them lol!!

[MarshalN]

I would suggest the second. I personally find the drainage tube setup very annoying -- the tubes are ugly and you need a bucket or some other (usually plastic) receiver for the water anyway. Tubes also get stuck sometimes.

Another advantage, IMO, is that the trays are easy to move around and use -- you can take it outside easier than a hunk of wood and a bucket, for example.

I think the second one will be better than the third one mostly because water will not collect on the second one. I also owned something similar to the second one for a few years and it is quite sturdy, whereas the third one can be very poorly produced, as far as I've seen.

As for bamboo ones -- it really depends on the kind of climate you live in. It could crack and split. Mine did.

[gingkoseto]

Does anyone notice that the swastika above points to the right, while the Nazi swastika points to the left? Seems trivial, but it's a different symbol, and the one above is used in Buddhist temples all over asia.

That's a good point The 2 symbols are actually different, though similar. I guess small amount of variations exist, but generally as teaguy said, the direction is always opposite to the nazi symbol.

As a non-religeous symbol, in Chinese culture, it also represent "10 thousand", many, or richness/fortune.

But they do share the same origin with nazi swastika. I wouldn't want to put it anywhere that my Jewish friends would see.

Some other patterns originate from the same symbol, but with variations and don't appear with much connection to the negative symbol of nazi swastika. Like this one:

It's seen in almost all ancient buildings in China. The design of the windows means endless fortune, with a lot of "10 thousand" symbols all connected.

This is a "10 thousand" symbol knot which is commonly seen in Asian craft.


This is a "round 10 thousand" symbol, which is commonly seen in crafts and Buddhism ceremonies. It is originated from the "10 thousand" too.

[teaguy]

Ten thousand thanks to ginko for the additional information !!

I wouldn't say it 'shares' the same history as the Nazi swastika though - it's been around for '10,000' years, and how old is the Nazi party?

Here's a link I found that's interesting:
http://history1900s.about.com/cs/swasti ... istory.htm

I'm still reading, but it's (way) past my bedtime . . . . . . . . .

[wyardley]

I'm pretty sure it's a myth that the Buddhist symbol points the opposite way from the Nazi symbol -- my understanding is that it can point either way.

See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika

[Jayaratna]

For sanskrit meanings of svastika, type svastika here (choose Cologne Digital Sanskrit Lexicon in the first row):

http://webapps.uni-koeln.de/tamil/

A

[gingkoseto]

I'm pretty sure it's a myth that the Buddhist symbol points the opposite way from the Nazi symbol -- my understanding is that it can point either way.

See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika

It does exist in both directions, espcially when for decoration purposes. Many people emphasize the direction with the wheel facing left, because that's the direction commonly seen on Buddha statues. But I guess it's because the mark is on buddha's body, when it's clockwise direction to buddha, it's counterclock direction to viewers - but that's just my random guess

[xuancheng]

Does anyone notice that the swastika above points to the right, while the Nazi swastika points to the left? Seems trivial, but it's a different symbol, and the one above is used in Buddhist temples all over asia.

That's a good point The 2 symbols are actually different, though similar. I guess small amount of variations exist, but generally as teaguy said, the direction is always opposite to the nazi symbol.

Just so you know, the Nazi swastika always points to the right. Most of the symbols in China point to the left, but some also point to the right. I saw one map in a book about Tibet where buddhist temples were marked with a left pointing swastika, and bon temples (the indigenous religion of the area) were marked with a swastika pointing to the right.