Over a cup of tea, Tea set

Tea, served from the heart.

Project Details

Category: Industrial design
Discipline: Industrial design, tableware design, heritage design, woodworking, 3D modelling
Team: Individual project

A modern tea set with no teapot, where you brew loose herbs right in the cup. Its shape is inspired by Slovenian heritage.

10°

angle of the cut rim: from the right viewpoint, the top of the cup looks like a heart

30°

overlap of the two circles that make up the serving plate

5 / 10

minutes marked on the glass hourglass, the brewing time for herbal infusions

Heritage

Slovenia is full of plants for herbal infusions.

Linden, chamomile, dandelion, rosehip, nettle, buckwheat and anise. There’s even a saying that “a flower grows for every illness.” Still, research showed that no tea set on the Slovenian market reflects where it comes from, while Slovenians are adopting foreign tea rituals, especially Asian ones.

The set gives Slovenian herbal infusions a ritual of its own. It takes its shape from two pieces of Slovenian heritage.

Archival black-and-white photo: four men in hats and aprons stand between two wooden handcarts piled with bentwood sieves, holding more sieves, with baskets at their feet, in front of a village house with an arched gate — Ribnica woodenware sellers with their sieves.

The Ribnica sieveThe bentwood sieve from Ribnica woodenware, a craft listed as Slovenian intangible cultural heritage
The heartA motif in Slovenian folk decoration, from embroidery and lace to painted beehive panels and gingerbread

Render of the heart plate: a heart-shaped bent wood rim standing on two overlapping wooden circles

The heart plateA heart-shaped rim of bent wood on two circles that overlap at 30°.

Cup

Each cup also serves as a teapot.

A reusable stainless steel strainer sits inside it, with marks for one and two teaspoons, so you don’t need a teapot or a measuring spoon. It also nudges you toward whole loose herbs instead of tea bags.

The cup’s rim is cut at a 10° angle, so from the right viewpoint the top looks like a heart. The angled rim also gives the strainer a stable place to rest. While the herbal infusion brews, a lid keeps the aroma in. Afterwards, you turn the lid over and use it as a stand for the strainer.

Two terracotta cups with heart-shaped rims, each set in a wooden handle — From the right viewpoint, the angled rim reads as a heart.

Perforated stainless steel strainer with a cross bar, standing in the upturned terracotta lid — The reusable stainless steel strainer on its stand, the upturned lid.

Line-drawn hand placing the lid on a cup with the strainer resting inside — While the herbal infusion brews, the lid keeps the aroma in.

Line-drawn hand turning the glass hourglass next to a lidded cup — The glass hourglass.

Line-drawn hand setting the strainer down on the upturned lid beside the cup — Afterwards, the lid turns over and holds the strainer.

Line-drawn hand lifting the cup out of its bent wood handle

The handleBent maple veneer, made with the same bending technique as the Ribnica sieve.

Serving plate

The set’s centrepiece.

In Slovenia, guests are never served a drink without something to snack on, even if it’s just biscuits. Most tea sets leave this out. The plate is made of two circles that overlap at 30°. For a bigger table, or to serve sweet and savoury snacks separately, you pull the circles apart and get two plates.

Render of the heart plate: a heart-shaped bent wood rim on two overlapping wooden circles

Two plates in onePull the two circles apart and there are two plates.

Round wooden tray with a raised bent rim and an opening in the rim to grip it

The trayA raised rim like a sieve and an opening on each side to grip it, so the whole set goes from the kitchen to the table in one go.

A wooden model of the cup stands on a board beside one half of its plaster mould, with a half-round cavity and round registration keys, in low sunlight — Making the plaster mould for slip casting the cup, around a wooden model.

Workshop: a round tray with its bent rim held by a rainbow strap and a clamp, lying on a technical drawing — In the workshop: the tray’s rim, bent and clamped around its base.

Exhibition view: the tray and the heart plate on a white plinth with process sheets, under the project poster — The tray and the heart plate on show, under the project poster.

The heart plate prototype in pale bent wood, its heart-shaped rim standing on two overlapping circles, on a dark grey background — The finished heart plate, made in bent wood.

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