This is a handmade Chinese lacquer plate, finished in solid red natural lacquer on the inside and deep black on the outside, over a wooden body. It comes in three sizes — 5.1", 5.9", and 7.1" in diameter — for serving tea snacks, fruit, and small bites, or stacking as a decorative set. Made by HFDlacquerware (禾丰鼎).

The finish is monochrome lacquer (一色漆), made with raw lacquer (生漆) — a natural sap tapped from the lacquer tree, with no synthetic coatings. A single color is brushed on in many thin coats, each one left to cure and then polished, until the surface turns smooth and deep with a soft, glassy sheen. Nothing is painted on top — the color itself is the decoration. Red inside and black outside is one of the oldest pairings in Chinese lacquerware, used for more than two thousand years.

Set a few pastries on the red and it looks like an occasion. Stack all three and they read as one quiet object on the shelf. Natural lacquer warms and deepens with gentle use, so the plate you use most will be the one that looks best in a few years.