Twelve sets a month from Liuzhou
Gao Lihua works out of a two-bench lampworking studio on the edge of Liuzhou, Guangxi. She trained in Chengdu in the late 2000s, then spent six years doing contract work for laboratory glassware before going independent in 2019. The tasting cup is her own design — she developed it for a friend running a small cha shi in Nanning who kept complaining that standard cups either lost aroma at the rim or distorted liquor colour with a green tint.
Michael visited the workshop in March 2024 on a swing back from Yunnan. The set caught his attention because of the rim — a subtle inward fold of about three millimetres, lampworked after the cup is blown rather than shaped from the gather. It is slow work. Gao batches twelve sets per month, no more, and rejects roughly a third for wall-thickness variance she catches by feel.
The glass is German borosilicate stock, the same tube she used in her lab days. Annealing runs overnight at 565°C in a small kiln behind the bench. Each cup is signed underneath with a tiny etched 高 — visible only at an angle, against the light.
We receive sets in lots of six to eight per shipment. There is no second source. When Gao takes her summer break in August the next batch lands in October. Pricing reflects the small-batch reality and a fair workshop margin — no middle layer between her bench and this page.