A pair fine iron-red decorated ‘poem’ cups from the Qianlong period [Photo/ english.cguardian.com/]

Qianlong Emperor loved a kind of tea called ‘sanqing tea’. Once he was caught in the snow on a tour of inspection, so he stopped to enjoy ‘sanqing tea’ seated in his tent and wrote a poem about his beloved tea. This poem was written on the pair of cups above, which sold for 1,840,000 RMB at the China Guardian 2011 Spring Auctions.