This gilded silver openwork cage from the Tang Dynasty (618-907) was among a batch of royal tea ware items unearthed in 1987 at Famen Temple – a famous Buddhist temple with a history of over 1,800 years – in northwest China's Shaanxi. It was once used to roast cakes of moist tea leaves which had been stored for a long time. Roasting helps to maintain the color, fragrance and taste of the tea.

Chinese people have kept the habit of drinking tea since ancient times, and it proliferated during the Tang Dynasty. Lu Yu, a tea scholar at that time, even wrote the first known monograph on tea, "The Classic of Tea."