Hey friends! Happy Saturday to you! Today's post is a review of a product I'd long been eyeing and officially purchased last month: the "Moveable Integrated Chinese Bamboo Tea Table" from UmiTeaSets. This table is just like the ones you'll see all over China in a variety of places, from massage parlors to casual settings to professional tea houses. This type of setup for brewing gongfu is extremely common in China, yet relatively uncommon in the west. I had been getting multiple messages on Instagram asking me about this table, so I finally decided it was time to do a writeup with my full thoughts. I plan on doing a follow-up to this too, at the 6-month mark, with updated impressions. For now, without further ado, here's today's review.
What Is This Table?
Essentially, this is everything you'll need for a proper, formal gongfu session. The integrated bamboo gongfu tea table itself has ample storage for tea leaves with a nice side shelving unit and a drawer under the tea tray, with a beautiful slotted bamboo door for the spot where your water goes. The whole table has a built-in, removable slate gongfu tray with drainage for your gongfu sessions, but it also includes a touchscreen-controlled kettle and sanitizing pot, as well as a convenient piece of bamboo with pegs for holding cups as they dry. Now, unless you've been to an authentic dim sum place or to a teahouse in China and experienced a formal gongfu session, you likely haven't seen a sanitizing pot before. It's exactly what it sounds like: a small pot with a lid that you fill with boiling water and maintain at or below a boil, placing the tea cups and teaware inside to sanitize and clean each item in between sessions. This is traditionally what the tongs are used for in a set of traditional gongfu tea tools- to grab the cups out of the sanitizing pot and to place them on the tray without burning your fingers or contaminating someone's cup with your fingers.
The neatest thing about this? The kettle fills itself automatically thanks to a clever system: included with the burner unit is an additional length of tubing that connects from the unit to your water, either in a bucket or other vessel- and it fills the kettle in an impressive 38 seconds. Once the kettle is full, the burner then starts and brings the water to a full boil at 100°C. The kettle is variable temp as well and can be changed at intervals of 5°C. To see this in action, check out the reel I posted on Instagram.
Purchasing Experience and Assembly:
Purchasing this direct off their website was quite a pleasant experience. I chatted with their sales agent, Luo, who was extremely helpful and offered a 10% discount. Luo also offered to throw in a free tea set with my order. Shipping was fairly fast and free, taking only about a week to get the table and 2 weeks to get the heating unit (as they were shipped separately, with the heating unit shipped via Korean Air) and the tea set.
Assembly was...fairly straightforward, though all of the instructions are in Chinese. So, if you don't have a good grasp of Mandarin or if you don't have Google or some other translator app handy, it will be a bit difficult- though it can be done as it does have illustrated diagrams for assembly. All-in-all, it took about an hour and a half to assemble the table. The table itself is incredibly solid, being entirely bamboo- it feels quality and doesn't feel like a cheap piece of furniture. Plus, the plastic casters on the bottom make it easy to move around when needed.
The kettle and heat unit were easy to use and ready to install instantly, so it took about 5mins to connect the tubing to the unit and then read through the instructions to understand what each button does (as the touchscreen unit is also in Chinese).
How To Use:
The table is fairly straightforward. I have included this picture here with the touchscreen translated into English, and the picture below is the set of instructions that came with the burner, but translated into English as well. Essentially, it has 5 touch buttons. From left to right, we have a button with 7/9/11/15 over it. This button offers you the option of a 7, 9, or 11-minute sterilization, turning on the sanitizer pot before the kettle. If you press the bottom of that, it will turn the kettle and the sanitizer pot on simultaneously to brew tea while also sanitizing the cups. The next button adds the water to the kettle- say you just want to top the kettle off but not totally dump your water out- you'll press this button twice to get it to fill the kettle up to its designated line before stopping. The button immediately to the right of the temperature display is the temperature control button- pressing that manually adjusts and sets the temperature for the kettle. The button next to that is the one you'll likely use most commonly after the "on/off" button- this button is the automatic water boiling key. It will fill the kettle with water in 38 seconds, then immediately switch the kettle burner on to boil the water. The last button must be double clicked- it is the on/off switch, and double clicking turns it into "--P-" mode, which basically turns the unit to standby mode.
The Chinese under the temperature display is a warning: Do NOT lift the kettle while filling it with water. Lifting the kettle while filling will result in water spraying and possibly damaging the heating unit, so please, just wait the 38 seconds for it to fill, friends!
Now, to use the tea tray- you NEED TO GET YOUR OWN TUBING FOR THE TABLE TO DRAIN PROPERLY. The table does NOT come with tubing for the tea tray- I ended up purchasing a few feet of 5/16" (5/16inch; 7.95mm) diameter tubing to use with a waste bucket, also purchased separately. This tubing does NOT need to be food-safe or food-grade as the sole function of this tubing will be to drain the waste water into a bucket, though if you are worried, please feel free to get food-grade tubing. The unit comes with tubing for the kettle but DOES NOT come with the tubing for the tray to drain. If you don't get the tubing, your tray will drain straight onto your floor- you don't want that. You can buy a standard pump from Amazon or other retailers that looks somewhat like this, and is basically the same but with an added pump to help push the water through the tubing.
What Are Your Overall Thoughts?
I absolutely love this table. As someone who has gongfu sessions quite regularly, it's amazing being able to have everything right there and not really needing to get up to refill the kettle or worrying about that. Plus, the kettle automatically restarts the burner when the sensor detects the water temperature lower than what you have it set to- so you can have a consistent session without constantly re-boiling water and waiting for it to cool before use. It is extremely convenient and it really heightens my tea making experience. Plus, it allows me to have longer sessions with friends without having to worry about constantly dumping the tea tray, as the tray drains itself into a waste bucket (sold separately- I got mine off Temu).
At a price of $358.00 (after the 10% discount), this is definitely a pricier investment, but for any serious tea lover, I think it's an absolute steal. You'll get many years out of this unit as it's solidly built and responsive, making for a great tea session every time.
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