This is a handmade Chinese lacquer wet tea brewing tray, finished in black-and-gold rhino skin lacquer (Xipi, 犀皮漆) and solid black lacquer on a solid Burma padauk (缅甸花梨) body, from the Chong Series by HFDlacquerware (禾丰鼎). At 23.6" × 11.4", it is built as a working tea tray: a drainage hole sits right where black meets gold, and a near-invisible slope carries spilled tea toward it on its own, so you can set cups and pots down freely and pour without worrying. In the Chong Series (high relief), the groundwork is built up high before the lacquer goes on, so the pattern rises and falls like terraced fields. Each Chong Series piece takes two to three years to make. The rhino skin coastline pattern forms on its own during lacquering, so no two trays share the same shoreline. It makes a considered gift for someone who takes their tea practice seriously. The rhino skin lacquer is land; the black lacquer is sea. A vein of gold winds between them, like a mark the tide left behind. Sea and shore sit side by side night and day, and neither crosses into the other. Black runs deep enough that gold can shine without restraint, and gold moves enough that black is never only stillness.