where to buy tasting set?

Information: Professional tasting sets are made to the world wide ISO

3103-1980 Standard that defines dimensions, volumes, and colour for tea tasting crockery. Every proper tea taster around the world from China through India, to Europe, and America uses the same design for tea tasting. He also uses exactly the same weight of tea (5.6 grams (the weight of an English silver shilling) in a large tasting set, 2.8 grams in a small set). And he brews for the same time - 6 minutes. And decants the tea into the bowl, and presses the infusion (wet leaves) into the upturned lid in exactly the same way. Thus tasters using the same equipment and methods can expect to have the same result wherever in the world they taste the same tea - globalisation came to the tea trade a century ago!

So, thats the similarity. But the difference is in the quality of the crockery available. You can find earthenware tasting sets; I have used them, made in China and Africa, that are thick walled, break easily, have off white glaze and a finish that cracks and crazes. They are cheap and ugly and drain the heat from the steeping tea liquor. You can also find thin walled sets in porcelain made to the latest Japanese ceramic methods. These are tough and long lived, and conform fully to the ISO Standard. They are not so cheap but will last a lifetime and are a pleasure to use.

Commercial starts here - to be ignored by those of a sensitive nature: I do not know of any supplier of the porcelain type in the USA (except Simpson and Vail) but Teacraft in the UK are noted for supplying this fine quality professional tasting crockery in both sizes to tea tasters around the world (plus all the other tasting paraphenalia - spoons, wheeled spittoons, felts, trays, sample trays, kettles - see

For small quantities you could also try Nothing But Tea who I see are selling the small sized porcelain tasting set at GBP6.50 per set USD11 plus mail.

Nigel at Teacraft