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Man and Well being

Sarah de Ruijter

Photographer: Vincent van Gurp

A TEA SET THAT CONNECTS CULTURES

As early as during the 17th century, the Dutch East Indian Company VOC introduced tea to our country. And yet there is not much of a tea-drinking culture in the Netherlands. Something which the different groups of immigrants do have. Each group has its own customs. Sarah de Ruijter sees tea as something to connect people: serving tea is a marker of hospitality and mutual respect. She has designed a tea set in which Turkish, Moroccan, Chinese, Polish, Surinamese and Indonesian elements combine to form a new tea drinking culture. With copper and porcelain as common factors, this set subtly displays characteristics from six different cultures. Fusion allows the user to keep up traditional rituals or to invent a completely new tea ceremony.