Tea visit with teapots, teapots and did I mention teapots?

A few months ago Thinkie and I went to Leeuwarden. A city in the far north of the Netherlands. And though she still does not like tea, we went there for tea.

Our train at Leeuwarden station

Our train at Leeuwarden station

(Note: This post is extremely photo heavy, so loading might take a while)

Leeuwarden station

Leeuwarden station

Leeuwarden

Leeuwarden

After a short detour we arrived at our first destination: “De wereld van thee“. There are actually 2 connected shops here. One specialized in tea and one in that other drink.

"Wereld van Thee" teashop

De wereld van thee” teashop

It is a nice shop. Their selection (220 loose leaf teas) is larger and differs somewhat from what other standard teashops in the Netherlands have to offer, but is of the same standard level. Which is far from bad, sometimes quite good, but there is a cutoff before it gets really interesting. I bought a tea tin and a ‘China Black sencha’. A type of tea I have not tried before. The information on the package is quite good compared to other shops. It even contains the name of the plantation the tea comes from. Something that not much standard shops do (sometimes even hard to read the name of the tea they wrote on the package). So all in all quite a nice shop to visit.

Along our road to our next and most important destination we passed 2 shops that could also be considered tea shops though the focus lies more on coffee.

Kaldi

Kaldi. It was the week before Sinterklaas and there was some Dickens like show going on in this nice old street (kleine kerkstraat)

Finally we arrived at our most important destination: The Princessehof National Museum of Ceramics (Keramiekmuseum Princessehof).

Now we all know that ceramics and tea are a great combination, but there was something even better going on.

"Op de thee" (tea visit)

“Op de thee” (tea visit)

Indeed, an exhibition about tea.

I will start with “some” photo’s to make you drool. And then I will tell you what I think of it.

Teapot tower in the main hall of the museum

Teapot tower in the main hall of the museum

Dinner room of the 18th century princess Maria Louise van  Hessen-Kassel that gave the museum its name. Set for tea.

Dinner room of the 18th century princess Maria Louise van Hessen-Kassel that gave the museum its name. Set for tea.

Series of china plates depicting all stages of tea production

Series of china plates depicting all stages of tea production

1760-1770, England, Staffordshire

1760-1770, England, Staffordshire

1774-1778, Oud-Loosdrecht (NL)

1774-1778, Oud-Loosdrecht (NL)

Tea tasting

Tea tasting

Nice porcelain. 1755-1762

Nice porcelain. 1755-1762

China

China Yixing teapots. Just a few...

China Yixing teapots. Just a few…

Chinese teacups

Chinese teacups

Japan

Japanese teaware

Japanese teaware

And of course a Japanese Chanoyu tearoom

And of course a Japanese Chanoyu tearoom

Competition

Youtube teapot

There was a competition for school kids to design their own teapot

17th and 18th century the Netherlands

Teaware in tea for save and weighted transportation

Teaware in tea for save and weighted transportation

Teaware de commande

Teaware de commande

Red stone teapots (Germany)

Red stone teapots (Germany)

European porcelain

European porcelain

Closeup European porcelain

Closeup European porcelain

Delftware

Delftware

Delftware

Delftware

"Theekoepel" on the river Vecht (?)

“Theekoepel” on the river Vecht (?)

Overview

Overview

20th and 21th century the Netherlands

Modern design teapots

Modern design teapots

Tea set

Tea set

Skull teapot

Skull teapot

Nice wall decoration

Nice wall decoration

Commercials for tea

Commercials for tea

Cute animal teapots

Cute animal teapots

More modern teapots

More modern teapots

The exhibition was quite nice. It showed a lot of tea ceramics. There should always be an exhibition like this within travel distance. But there were some minor points. First of all I missed the story. The exhibition was divided in regions and the most important aspects of tea history were mentioned but in several cases the visitor was left clueless. For example what is Yixing. Why is is so important that we see a hundred of Yixing teapots. It missed the connection between the looses things that were told. There also was no exhibition catalogue and no tea books that could fill these void. But it could just be me. Furthermore: Dutch only…

Restaurant

Before we went to the regular exhibition we had a drink. And the restaurant was a little bit in style.

Teapots on display in the restaurant

Teapots on display in the restaurant

Princessehof tea (Ceylon with gojifruit, saffron and cornflower)

Princessehof tea (Ceylon with gojifruit, saffron and cornflower)

Rest of the museum

In the standard exhibition there was some tea too. And f course a lot f other things…

Workshop Jan van der Vaart

Workshop Jan van der Vaart (important 20th century Dutch ceramist)

China

Some old (Tang dynasty) Chinese China

Some old (Tang dynasty) Chinese China

The Chinese ceramics room

The Chinese ceramics room

More old (Tang?) Chinese china

More old (Tang?) Chinese china

Islamic

Islamic porcelain

Islamic porcelain

Magic

Martavanen magical pots

Martavanen magical pots

A lot

Looxma Ypeij kabinet

Looxma Ypeij kabinet

Chinese and Japanese porcelain for the Netherlands, 17th century

Famille Verte

Famille Verte

Yixing pots besides some porcelain found in a shipwreck (unclear whether the Yixing was part of that salvage)

Yixing pots besides some porcelain found in a shipwreck (unclear whether the Yixing was part of that salvage)

Yixing teapot

Yixing teapot

Chine de commande

Chine de commande

Chine de commande

Chine de commande

Yixing pots

Yixing pots

More Yixing

More Yixing

And more

And more

Japanese porcelain

Japanese Porcelain

Japanese Porcelain

Japanese Porcelain

Japanese Porcelain

Matcha bowl

Matcha bowl

Teapot

Teapot

There was also some Thai and Vietnamese porcelain.

Asian depot

Asian depot

Asian depot

China in the Asian depot

China in the Asian depot

Large teapot to put money in for the tea

Large teapot to put money in for the tea

Yixing

Yixing

Modern ceramics in the collected friends exhibition

The Society of Friends of the Princessehof National Museum of Ceramics collects the finest modern and contemporary ceramics. This exhibitions shows a selection from that collection.

A kiss

A kiss

Modern pottery

Modern pottery

Viscera

Viscera

11 thoughts on “Tea visit with teapots, teapots and did I mention teapots?

  1. bram Post author

    Photo size. My previous site-theme had less space for large photo’s. So now I use larger photo’s on my blog. Perhaps too large? Should I make them smaller next time? Let me know.

  2. Jackie

    I like the large photos better and for me they are no problem to load. Don’t know how loading is for others though. But there are so many gorgeous pics I would have been tempted to split them into two, or even three posts. Before museum, exhibition, rest of the museum? Scrolling up and down through the post would be easier. That way the reader doesn’t see a “mass of pictures” but can focus more intensely on a smaller number. That would make commenting on some easier too. Anyway, maybe someone else “sees it” differently? The pictures are stunning, love them! I will be back soon with comments about what you wrote.

  3. Thinkie

    No problem here, but then again, I’m visiting from my laptop, not sure what this does to smartphones. Jackie’s suggestion for splitting something like this into multiple blog posts might be a good idea if this is something you worry about, that way you limit the amount of photo’s without having to limit your selection even further.

  4. Thinkie

    Too bad we missed the exhibition on hot chocolate ๐Ÿ˜‰

    1. bram Post author

      Darn, forgot that one.

      1. Xavier

        Shame on you @bram.

        Really nice to see so many teapots and tea stuff.

        I really need to have some of these commercials ๐Ÿ˜›

        And I think there might be a mistake in the text below one of the pictures.
        How come one time it is a red stone (Germany) and another a Yixing?

        1. bram Post author

          Yeah, shame on me ๐Ÿ™‚

          Once Yixing was imported European factories tries to duplicate it. So there were some German factories that managed to create red stone tea ware (and other stuff). It is usually heavier and less refined an does not have the special properties that make Yixing tea ware so special.

          If you want to know more you might want to look for Bรถttgersteinzeug.

  5. bram Post author

    More worried about the size of the pictures on screen ๐Ÿ™‚ Height and width ๐Ÿ™‚

  6. Thinkie

    Oh well, some (hot) chocolate might help us get over that ๐Ÿ˜‰

    Size looks fine on my laptop and Roeland’s, I bet even somewhat smallish on a large pc-screen like Maarten’s.

  7. Thinkie

    many of your photos show overviews of several items, having smaller photo’s might make it hard to see those in detail.

  8. bram Post author

    Due to being a huge success the exhibition has been extended till July 5 2015.

    On average people give the exhibition an 8,2 (out of 10). And since its start in September there were about 4 times the normal number of visitors to the museum. (~23000 instead of ~6000)

    See here (in Dutch)

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