Although trained at the London School of Design, Dresser pursued a career in botany and obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Jena at twenty-six. Failing to become professor of botany at University College, London, he turned to designing mass-produced household wares, including carpets, silver, glass, furniture, metalwork, and wallpaper.

Dresser was impressed by the Japanese exhibits at the 1862 Paris Exposition Universelle and visited Japan in 1877. In his semiofficial capacity representing British manufacturers, he was accorded favored status to travel and to study decorative-arts production. His Japan: Its Architecture, Art, and Art Manufactures (London and New York, 1882) records his visit.

This tea set was designed after his return. The small pieces that fit inside the two large ones reflect the Japanese love of stacking boxes and conserving space. The woven bamboo on the handle is also Eastern in derivation. It is in his new interest in form, rather than pattern, that the influence of Dresser's Japanese experience is most noticeable. The shapes evoke ones readily encountered in Japan in wood or in a metal such as iron. The set was popular and produced in both sterling and electroplate for at least a decade.