Richard Kligler launched “For All the Tea in Charleston” with the most elevated intentions. The former insurance executive, who in 2017 moved to Isle of Palms, South Carolina after a dozen years in Hong Kong, hoped his guided tea tastings would inculcate participants with appreciation for Chinese tea and its cultivation.
Damned if they didn’t just coo over his clay dragon.
Tea pets are a longstanding component of Chinese tea culture, and certainly the cutest. For the last 600 years or so, loose leaf tea enthusiasts have poured the first cup from their pots over a ceramic figurine, known in China as chachong. “People are under the misconception that it’s to remove any impurities, but it’s actually to wake up the tea leaves so your second brew is more enjoyed by your guests or yourself,” Kligler explained.
Unlike some beverage accoutrements, such as a tea infuser or coffee scoop, tea pets are designed to last a lifetime. Over years of service, the pets darken from repeated drenching, developing an individual character that some drinkers liken to a soul. Consequently, Chinese tea drinkers think of their tea pets as irreplaceable companions.
“I was helping my tea [importer] with an event in New York, and the first thing she said to me was, ‘Are you bringing your tea pet?’,” Kligler recalled. “I said, ‘I sure am.’”
Kligler’s tea pet is a fist-sized fish-dragon, a mystical creature that his daughter named “Loong Cha” when Kligler purchased it in Shenzen, China. After 15 years with Kligler, Loong Cha has acquired a handsome patina, but Kligler maintains “it still has some time before it fully develops a ‘soul.’”
In addition to performing an important function, tea pets are considered both lucky and decorative, so many of them are styled after Chinese zodiac animals, such as rabbits and tigers. But crickets, toads, elephants, and Buddhas also turn up in tea pet collections; as residents of the western world have adopted the tea pet tradition, Kligler has seen an increasing number of dogs and cats for sale.
When Kligler first called a friend in China who he was sure “could source a cargo ship” of tea pets, she initially didn’t understand what he wanted, since Kligler didn’t then know how to describe them in Chinese. He sent her a photo of ol’ Loong Cha, and there are now four kinds of tea pets for sale on his website.
While Kligler hadn’t set out to peddle tea pets, he likes that they reflect the ritualism, reverence, and harmony essential to Chinese tea culture—which was the lesson he meant to impart all along.
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