A style study — not a real store, not affiliated with Karolis Strautniekas · more
Karolis dusk study

Chinese tea · shop 24

A bowl in the last of the light

Flat planes of teal and terracotta, one ochre wedge of daylight, a figure who stopped by the window. The tea inside the bowl is photographed; everything around it is drawn.

Dark editorial illustration: a faceted figure in a long coat stands at a tall window with mountains beyond, steam rising from a stone bowl of dark pressed tea.

Tea in seven categories

34 teas · 7 categories

Green teaGreen tea5 teasOolongOolong14 teasRed tea (hongcha)Red tea (hongcha)6 teasPu-erhPu-erh4 teasWhite teaWhite tea2 teasTea paste (chagao)Tea paste (chagao)2 teasBuckwheat (not a tea)Buckwheat (not a tea)1 tea

The same drawing, worn

All tees and hoodies →

Wear — Ālǐshān Zhū Lù CháĀlǐshān Zhū Lù CháWear — Bái JiānBái JiānWear — Passion-Fruit OolongPassion-Fruit OolongWear — Raw Pu-erh PasteRaw Pu-erh PasteWear — Ripe Pu-erh PasteRipe Pu-erh PasteWear — Dà Hóng PáoDà Hóng Páo

Why this shop sits at dusk

The page stays at dusk on purpose. Fermented tea is dark and low-lit, and it reads better against teal and terracotta than against a white screen, so the room, the window and the figure in the long coat are drawn as flat facets, the palette is held to three colours plus one wedge of ochre light, and the grain is pushed to the weight of printed paper. What is never drawn is the tea: the bowl and the leaf in every picture are our own photographs, set into the illustration without repainting the leaf. The wear carries the whole drawing at full size, so the shirt and the tea are one object. The visual grammar is studied from the illustrator Karolis Strautniekas, who has no part in this shop; the drawings and the tea are ours.