I could spend a lifetime trying to describe the moment of tea and never come close to this description. These vessels are designed to play a simple part in that moment.
“Tea with us became more than idealization of the form of drinking; it is a religion of the art of life. The beverage grew to be an excuse for the worship of purity and refinement, a sacred function at which the host and guest joined to produce for that occasion the utmost beatitude of the mundane. The tearoom was an oasis in the dreary waste of existence where weary travelers could meet to drink tea from the common spring of art-appreciation.” – Kakuzo Okakura, The Book of Tea