The archive · Design & Visual · Product decision · 2024
'The Taste of Chinese Plants' is designed as a tea brick that brews through time
A book of 26 stories about Chinese plants and tea is built as a tea brick in wrapping paper and a wooden box, so reading feels like brewing.
Jiangsu Phoenix Science Press
What it had to solve
'The Taste of Chinese Plants' is not only a book about tea: 26 stories and nearly 50 flavors interweave with poetic tea writing and words full of wisdom and life interest to explore the local customs of Chinese plants. The design task was to make that taste aesthetic tangible.
How it works
'The Taste of Chinese Plants' is a book about tea that reaches beyond tea: 26 stories and nearly 50 flavors interweave to explore the local customs of Chinese plants, guided by poetic tea writing and words full of wisdom and everyday life.
The design task was to give that taste aesthetic a physical form. Jiangsu Phoenix Science Press, named as both production company and client, built the book as a tea brick so the object itself belongs to the world the writing describes.
The tea-brick feel is carried through the whole process: the reader first meets the book in its wooden box, then unwraps the tea-brick wrapping paper, and only then opens the pages — a sequence that makes reading feel like brewing tea through time.
By the time the stories begin, the reader has already met the subject through the senses. D&AD keeps the work in its awards archive under Book Design; the page records no publication or sales figures.
Why it lands
- A tea book shaped as a tea brick means the format says what the text takes chapters to say: the book is already about tea before a page is turned.
- The layered unwrapping — wooden box, wrapping paper, brick — gives reading a brewing rhythm, so the content is experienced in time rather than all at once.
- Tea-brick materiality connects the book to the customs it documents, making it feel like an artifact of the culture instead of a report about it.
- An object that reads as tea on a shelf or in a gift box sells the book's subject to browsers who have never opened a page.
What it did
The object turns reading into a ritual with a tempo: unpack the wooden box, unwrap the paper, and the book arrives like tea being brewed through time. D&AD keeps the work in its awards archive under Book Design; the page records no sales figures.
What you can take
When content is about a sensory ritual, make the book perform it: material, wrap and container can deliver a taste that words alone describe, turning reading itself into the experience.
Since then
The book was designed and produced with Jiangsu Phoenix Science Press as both production company and client, formed as a tea brick wrapped in paper and housed in a wooden box. D&AD keeps the work in its awards archive under Book Design; the page records no publication dates or sales figures.
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