ITALIA TOUR

ITALIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM OF TEA OF RADDUSA IN CATANIA

Italian National Museum of Tea

Address: Via Garibaldi 45
Phone: 095.662193
Services: Tea Room, Weddings, Conferences, Courses on Te, guided tours, school groups

A little more than five hundred zisha teapots in the land, different from each other both in the model and in size, from distant China, are on display at the third floor of the museum. The exhibition, which has an international dimension, has been opened and inaugurated last year and can be visited every day, either in the morning than in the afternoon, under the guidance of the Masters of the Association who know the origin of each teapot and the historical reference period. The teapots are the property of Master Xu Zongmin - Chinese collector who has donated to the museum on loan just because they could put in the show. The exhibition is sectioned into 25 groups of 20 pots per group, each of which represents a well-defined historical period of China and its imperial dynasty. All faithful copies of the originals, some of them bear the seal of the Emperor of the time and ceramist who had made . Each teapot is placed on a silk cloth in a different color and is accompanied by a number which corresponds, in a manual, the description of a single story. A particularly curious and interesting is the fact that all teapots, being made of zisha purple ground, because they are not glazed, experts say, the use of lead, present in glazes, greatly alter the taste of fine teas. Although they are not glazed, however, teapots shall retain a special color depending on the area of origin, rigidly China, the land with which they were made. So some of cast iron teapots seem, other than iron, others of wood. The notebook of signatures has already recorded the presence of important people who are visiting the exhibition were particularly impressed by the beauty and uniqueness of teapots on display.