A PRETTY device for making tea Chinese fashion at the home table and at afternoon teas, and for serving delicate refreshment to callers, consists of a hollow ball of gold or silver about the size of a walnut, suspended from a finger ring by a slender chain four or five inches long. The ball divides in the middle, and the halves are hinged. It is perfected with innumerable holes. Sometimes it is made of gold or silver wire gauze.
The hostess uses it in this wise:
She opens the hollow ball, fills the halves with dry tea leaves,and clasps it shut. She then slips the ring from which it is suspended upon one of the fingers of the right hand. Filling a teacup with hot water, she lets the ball hang in the cup, and moves it back and forth and up and down until the water is coloured to the desired strength. The strength of the tea, of course, depends upon the length of time the ball is dawdled in the cup. Hot water, of course, is always at hand, and this easy and graceful way of running the tea in the guest's presence forbids the suspicion that the hostess is putting herself to inconvenience in providing it. Beside being refreshing, the tea conduces to ease and sociability.
Source: HINTS FOR HOUSEHOLDS. (1890, May 9). Port Adelaide News and Lefevre's Peninsula Advertiser (SA : 1883 - 1897), p. 4 (SUPPLEMENT TO THE PORT ADELAIDE NEWS).
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