Lennon Tool Bar - 2021 Spring Limited - 鼠麴粿/Tsháu-á-kué. Lennon Tool Bar's Spring Limited ink is inspired by the deep herbaceous green color of the traditional tsháu-á-kué herbal rice balls used as offerings to the gods and ancestors. Just before the start of spring time, these traditional herbal rice balls are made in households as a way of making the best use of newly sprouted herbs before they spoil in the heat of the summer. Combined with ground aged rice, the herbal rice balls are then molded into the shape of other precious offerings such as fish, fruit, coins, and tortoises that represent longevity.
The significance of Tsháu-á-kué is also closely tied to tomb sweeping and cleaning traditions in Taiwan. On Chinese New Year and on Tomb Sweeping Day in Taiwan, many families will take a trip to visit the graves of their ancestors, bringing along these herbal rice balls as well as other traditional foods to have a picnic with their ancestors as a way of paying respect.
This Lennon Tool Bar ink, like many others before it, highlights and celebrates a part of Taiwanese culture and tells the story of one part of Taiwan through ink colors. This ink bottle comes nested inside an embossed metallic foiled case. The set also includes two booklets all about Tsháu-á-kué (one in Chinese and one in English) including picture recipes for those who would like to try making it! Three postcards and a QR code to a Taiwanese audio book featuring voices from Taiwan telling stories about herbal rice balls is also included.
- Dye-based Ink
- 35ml
- 2 booklets (Chinese/English)
- 3 postcards
- 2021 Winter Limited
- Taiwanese audiobook
About Lennon Tool Bar:
Lennon Tool Bar was founded in 2014 at Tamsui, Taiwan. Initially, it started to promote arts and crafts of Indigo Dyeing, a business that flourished a century ago in Taiwan, and at the time, Taiwan exported a considerable amount of "doroai," or the raw material of colorants used in Indigo Dyeing, to the Japanese Empire. Lennon Tool Bar draws inspiration from the traditional process and the popular colors used in Indigo Dyeing.