The Tea Ritual
For a ritual to have all the potential benefits it would have to satisfy 2 main conditions and some sub-conditions entailed by them:
1 Tea-drinking provided by this teapot has to indulge all senses:
Details of the designed parts that ensure some of these sensory experiences are given in the design criteria. (hypl)
2 Rituals are usually collective and tea-drinking is not necessarily. The second condition would be to give it a collective goal which would provide for a sense of belonging and contributing. This goal would be to make an impact in helping women empowerment (hyp) projects around the world.
Here I will say in which ways their individual characteristics would help one get the experience of a ritual.
1 Visual sensory experience would explicitly show the change, ( which is the subject that ritual helps one to accept). The Visual shows us the impossibility of being static, never changing, never going into the unfamiliar, never changing your mind. It tells you that you can adapt, as tea adapts to water, that you must not be afraid to change, as the tea changes it's colour so naturally, that you can approach life playfully as the leaves in the water do when you see them twirl in the infuser.
(I recognize that there is no guarantee that a user would see all of the potential of the product as I have imagined so there might be a note in the package to help the users uncover all the intricacies of the object.)
All of the other senses are there to make the rest of the experience as nice as possible so that one would be prompted to accept this rounded experience upon acknowledging it and possibly start seeing a beautiful cup of tea as a little personal celebration of each day.
2 Kinesthetic experience
In the beginning of the project this mainly related to keeping the warmth of the teapot, but after the presentation and the feedback, I am working on making a specific pattern for the clay part that would make it more interesting and kinesthetically engaging.
3 Auditory
This mainly refers to tea being poured out from the spout and is the least represented of all other senses. I was thinking about the options of making the pouring bit of the process louder by creating a double spout, but after thinking about it I decided agains it as I don't want it to be to interruptive to the whole process.
Solution: Water pouring out of the holes on the infuser, creating a lot of tiny pouring sounds.
4 Olfactory
The smell of the tea is a very important aspect as well, but it cannot be strictly related to the design of the teapot because the olfactory sensation is contingent upon aromatic molecules diffusing in the air around us. This would require either a spout of a large diameter or an opening on the lid. However, this would mean to compromise on heat retention, which is arguably more important because it affects the taste of tea.
5 Taste
Allows for a good taste in two ways. Firstly the clay in the bottom would keep the warmth. Secondly, the fact that the bottom of the teapot would be thicker than the top would allow for circulation of liquid which would facilitate a more even diffusion of aromatic molecules.
Daily Ritual:
http://www.samovarlife.com/why-rituals-matter-part-1-my-daily-tea-ritual/
For a ritual to have all the potential benefits it would have to satisfy 2 main conditions and some sub-conditions entailed by them:
1 Tea-drinking provided by this teapot has to indulge all senses:
- Visual
- Kinesthetic
- Auditory
- Olfactory
- Taste
Details of the designed parts that ensure some of these sensory experiences are given in the design criteria. (hypl)
2 Rituals are usually collective and tea-drinking is not necessarily. The second condition would be to give it a collective goal which would provide for a sense of belonging and contributing. This goal would be to make an impact in helping women empowerment (hyp) projects around the world.
Here I will say in which ways their individual characteristics would help one get the experience of a ritual.
1 Visual sensory experience would explicitly show the change, ( which is the subject that ritual helps one to accept). The Visual shows us the impossibility of being static, never changing, never going into the unfamiliar, never changing your mind. It tells you that you can adapt, as tea adapts to water, that you must not be afraid to change, as the tea changes it's colour so naturally, that you can approach life playfully as the leaves in the water do when you see them twirl in the infuser.
(I recognize that there is no guarantee that a user would see all of the potential of the product as I have imagined so there might be a note in the package to help the users uncover all the intricacies of the object.)
All of the other senses are there to make the rest of the experience as nice as possible so that one would be prompted to accept this rounded experience upon acknowledging it and possibly start seeing a beautiful cup of tea as a little personal celebration of each day.
2 Kinesthetic experience
In the beginning of the project this mainly related to keeping the warmth of the teapot, but after the presentation and the feedback, I am working on making a specific pattern for the clay part that would make it more interesting and kinesthetically engaging.
3 Auditory
This mainly refers to tea being poured out from the spout and is the least represented of all other senses. I was thinking about the options of making the pouring bit of the process louder by creating a double spout, but after thinking about it I decided agains it as I don't want it to be to interruptive to the whole process.
Solution: Water pouring out of the holes on the infuser, creating a lot of tiny pouring sounds.
4 Olfactory
The smell of the tea is a very important aspect as well, but it cannot be strictly related to the design of the teapot because the olfactory sensation is contingent upon aromatic molecules diffusing in the air around us. This would require either a spout of a large diameter or an opening on the lid. However, this would mean to compromise on heat retention, which is arguably more important because it affects the taste of tea.
5 Taste
Allows for a good taste in two ways. Firstly the clay in the bottom would keep the warmth. Secondly, the fact that the bottom of the teapot would be thicker than the top would allow for circulation of liquid which would facilitate a more even diffusion of aromatic molecules.
Daily Ritual:
http://www.samovarlife.com/why-rituals-matter-part-1-my-daily-tea-ritual/