gryphon tea heritage art

Posted by Camemberu | Posted in gourmet tea | Posted on Saturday, May 08, 2010

Gryphon Tea has launched its Heritage Art Series, a special initiative to help promote awareness of Singapore's history and give exposure to local young artists. It's supported by the National Heritage Board (NHB).

Lots of companies give support to the arts and culture, but I got the feel that Gryphon Tea's founder and director Mr Lim Tian Wee is truly passionate about the arts (well, his own father was an artist). At the launch event last month, he spoke with great enthusiasm about this labour of love that he championed.



What Gryphon Tea did was identify three budding artists (yes, all three just happen to be female) and commission them to freely create their interpretation of how Singapore's heritage inspires them. The NHB gave the artists full access to its museums.

The designs were then parlayed into special edition boxes for three tea blends. These are quite pretty. Take a look.





Artist Lee Wai Leng (also known as FleeCircus) created this whimsical piece "Beneath the Cardamom Shade" depicting the carefree innocence of a child in a garden. She drew inspiration from the Singapore Art Museum and its large collection of Asian contemporary art. Her artwork adorns the Straits Chai tea box.



Gryphon's Earl Grey tea has gone futuristic with Annette Heitmann's silver and lilac paper-cut multi-layer artwork called "Earl Grey 2053". Annette used the letters in the name "Earl Grey" to create a face representing Earl Charles Grey (to whom the tea owes its name). She also included aspects of symmetry and modern design found at the National Museum of Singapore.



The Peranakan museum inspired Wyn-Lyn Tan with its intricately designed Baba and Nyonya crockery. She incorporated the green, pink, yellow and brown she saw to represent the green tea, rose and jasmine elements within her favourite tea, The Pearl of the Orient. Her piece entitled "Blush of a Golden Hue" combines graphite pencil lines with freeform Chinese ink brushstrokes. 

All three boxes of tea are packed together in one set, along with a card that gives a pair of admission tickets to any one of the three museums that the artists drew inspiration from. The set retails at S$60 (before GST), and there are only 2,000 sets distributed in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam.

For a list of retail locations, call Gryphon Tea at +65 6779-2948.

The good news is - I have five of these Heritage Art Series sets to give away! Just name any one of the artists and the tea blend they chose. First five to answer correctly will win. Please check back here for results, and be on standby to give me your real name and email address so I can arrange for you to collect your limited edition set.



I like the artwork they created for Gryphon. Quite frankly, I would happily get me one of these hot water air pots with the designs if they sold them!