Italian designer Luca Nichetto and Russian designer Lera Moiseeva launched the Aureola tea service last winter. The set, designed for Mjolk, explores the ritual of tea with an emphasis on its communal nature.
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The set uses black and red oxides to color the white porcelain, black and red being the most common colors of tea itself. The interior of the vessel is left intentionally rough so that a patina will build up inside and enhance the flavor of future uses.
Sharing, of course, also plays a role in the design. The creators state:
“The idea of designing a tea set comes from a personal research, started long ago from the Venetian designer Luca Nichetto and developed together with the Russian designer Lera Moiseeva, on the ancient and modern sharing rituals that, even nowadays, play an important role in the social relationships in several countries. The tea ceremony, more than others, represents an important tradition in many areas of the world, and particularly in Asia, where it became almost sacred, influencing this way numerous cultures. By observing how tea is consumed in Russia, Luca Nichetto has noticed that the infuse is served not in cups but in small bowls without the handle and realized how this small detail gives more solemnity to the whole ritual.
The Aureola tea set is composed of a main body, a filter, and two cups, made in fine porcelain colored in mass and the pigments, obtained from metal powders, are commonly used to create the finest Asian lacquers. As the heat propagates from the center of the bowl towards the outside, so the energy aura of the people involved in the sharing rite seems to expand in wider circles towards the others. From this image takes its name the tea set Aureola, which has on its surface the signs that graphically represent this concept.”
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