Yixing

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Baisao
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Thu Apr 20, 2023 6:07 pm

Shine Magical wrote:
Thu Apr 20, 2023 5:39 pm
I'm interested in amplifying the fruity and chocolate notes in hongcha. Is there a clay that can do this? Those are two different tasting notes... two different pots needed? What clays are often paired with hongcha and why?
I don’t recall ever having chocolate notes in hongcha but definitely berries, tropical fruits, and cherries. Maybe what you feel is chocolate I have mapped to something else.

So, perhaps half an answer— I think modern zhuni with a more or less spherical body is good for concentrating these fruit aromas with full heat. It excels at handling these higher notes without being as bright as porcelain. If there are chocolate notes, they will be there but it won’t do anything to smooth out any structural defects in that part of the aromatic spectrum.
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d.manuk
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Thu Apr 20, 2023 6:45 pm

Baisao wrote:
Thu Apr 20, 2023 6:07 pm
Shine Magical wrote:
Thu Apr 20, 2023 5:39 pm
I'm interested in amplifying the fruity and chocolate notes in hongcha. Is there a clay that can do this? Those are two different tasting notes... two different pots needed? What clays are often paired with hongcha and why?
I don’t recall ever having chocolate notes in hongcha but definitely berries, tropical fruits, and cherries. Maybe what you feel is chocolate I have mapped to something else.

So, perhaps half an answer— I think modern zhuni with a more or less spherical body is good for concentrating these fruit aromas with full heat. It excels at handling these higher notes without being as bright as porcelain. If there are chocolate notes, they will be there but it won’t do anything to smooth out any structural defects in that part of the aromatic spectrum.
I find that the chocolate notes can can be more apparent at 195F steeps

By modern zhuni do you mean hongni? Or is there still zhuni clay remaining to make modern pots...?
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Bok
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Thu Apr 20, 2023 7:01 pm

Baisao wrote:
Thu Apr 20, 2023 6:07 pm
Shine Magical wrote:
Thu Apr 20, 2023 5:39 pm
I'm interested in amplifying the fruity and chocolate notes in hongcha. Is there a clay that can do this? Those are two different tasting notes... two different pots needed? What clays are often paired with hongcha and why?
I don’t recall ever having chocolate notes in hongcha but definitely berries, tropical fruits, and cherries. Maybe what you feel is chocolate I have mapped to something else.

So, perhaps half an answer— I think modern zhuni with a more or less spherical body is good for concentrating these fruit aromas with full heat. It excels at handling these higher notes without being as bright as porcelain. If there are chocolate notes, they will be there but it won’t do anything to smooth out any structural defects in that part of the aromatic spectrum.
I'd second Zhuni in general, can't speak of modern, but I got one or two old Zhuni which excell with Hongcha. Mind you modern Zhuni is more consistent in performance, old one is case by case unfortunately.

Chocolate notes I am familiar with in low grade Taiwanese Hongcha. They call it "Guzaowei Hongcha" basically Old Style Hongcha. The kind you get at the side of the street in small eateries, often ecologically sold in plastic bags with a plastic straw closed in with a plastic string.
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Baiyun
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Thu Apr 20, 2023 7:07 pm

@Shine Magical I think it is hard to point out a clay or pot to you that is anywhere near guaranteed to do anything specific to a given tea or tea type. So I think trying to purchase a pot with this kind of task or expectation is unlikely to be successful. It's more like the other way around, where you get a pot and try different teas and then use it for teas it works well with. It may not be what you had in mind. All we can do to narrow the search is act on broad assumptions of how certain clays and shapes tend to brew, but there are convention defying pots out there.

I think with modern Zhuni, as @Baisao mentioned, you are likely to keep these notes and add a bit of roundness to the tea so that anything that comes through as chocolate for you perhaps even more closely resembles the thicker mouthfeel of actual chocolate. Brewing in porcelain would be similar but likely bit flatter and thinner. A lot of the benefits of clay pots also come down to thermal properties, not just clay interaction, and it is not always easy to draw the line.

All my modern Zhuni pots behave similarly and largely leave notes intact, they all add mouthfeel, some have slight attenuation of undesired hints, but it requires attentive testing in an experimental setup to appreciate the slight attenuation differences. Yet they are all from different sources, and the clay looks quite different. So if I was to pick one, I would simply look for a relatively pure and dense appearance (few imperfections and no sandy texture) with relatively thin walls from a source that provides as many details (maker, clay mining, aging, processing, firing, construction), in a suitable shape and size and with fast pour, for additional flexibility. I think Shuipings are good allrounder shapes, however, some teas favour a wider or taller body, or wider openings, but this is where multiple pots come in, which is not at all necessary to gain most of the benefits of brewing in clay. I used a single pot for over 2 years before adding more.
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d.manuk
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Thu Apr 20, 2023 7:12 pm

Bok wrote:
Thu Apr 20, 2023 7:01 pm
Baisao wrote:
Thu Apr 20, 2023 6:07 pm
Shine Magical wrote:
Thu Apr 20, 2023 5:39 pm
I'm interested in amplifying the fruity and chocolate notes in hongcha. Is there a clay that can do this? Those are two different tasting notes... two different pots needed? What clays are often paired with hongcha and why?
I don’t recall ever having chocolate notes in hongcha but definitely berries, tropical fruits, and cherries. Maybe what you feel is chocolate I have mapped to something else.

So, perhaps half an answer— I think modern zhuni with a more or less spherical body is good for concentrating these fruit aromas with full heat. It excels at handling these higher notes without being as bright as porcelain. If there are chocolate notes, they will be there but it won’t do anything to smooth out any structural defects in that part of the aromatic spectrum.
I'd second Zhuni in general, can't speak of modern, but I got one or two old Zhuni which excell with Hongcha. Mind you modern Zhuni is more consistent in performance, old one is case by case unfortunately.

Chocolate notes I am familiar with in low grade Taiwanese Hongcha. They call it "Guzaowei Hongcha" basically Old Style Hongcha. The kind you get at the side of the street in small eateries, often ecologically sold in plastic bags with a plastic straw closed in with a plastic string.
Yes for chocolate notes I was thinking of some Taiwanese and Korean hongcha, though I've had some Chinese ones too though they were from wild bushes.

Isn't zhuni very expensive? I'd had almost every other yixing clay pot in the past, but I remember being zhuni being 4 digit prices.
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Bok
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Thu Apr 20, 2023 7:14 pm

Shine Magical wrote:
Thu Apr 20, 2023 7:12 pm
Isn't zhuni very expensive? I'd had almost every other yixing clay pot in the past, but I remember being zhuni being 4 digit prices.
Modern can be less, with the caveat that real low end is not Zhuni. Old zhuni is of course expensive, unless you find some ware with major damage or so.
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d.manuk
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Thu Apr 20, 2023 7:18 pm

Baiyun wrote:
Thu Apr 20, 2023 7:07 pm
My modern Zhuni pots -- some have slight attenuation of undesired hints
Yeah I want to avoid that as much as possible, I hate when that happens after testing a new pot.
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Bok
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Thu Apr 20, 2023 7:21 pm

Shine Magical wrote:
Thu Apr 20, 2023 7:18 pm
Baiyun wrote:
Thu Apr 20, 2023 7:07 pm
My modern Zhuni pots -- some have slight attenuation of undesired hints
Yeah I want to avoid that as much as possible, I hate when that happens after testing a new pot.
Isn't that a sign of the teas faults and not the fault of the pot? :roll:
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Baiyun
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Thu Apr 20, 2023 7:30 pm

Shine Magical wrote:
Thu Apr 20, 2023 7:18 pm
Baiyun wrote:
Thu Apr 20, 2023 7:07 pm
My modern Zhuni pots -- some have slight attenuation of undesired hints
Yeah I want to avoid that as much as possible, I hate when that happens after testing a new pot.
By attenuation I mean they reduce undesired hints, such as bitterness or astringency, generally a desired trait, but less so than more interactive clays would.

As for modern Zhuni, it exists, and is only said not to exist by those who only consider antique Zhuni to deserve this name. However, based on the type of yellow ore it is made from, and the fact that this ore continues to be found, mined, and processed from various locations, and that pots made from this clay emerge from the kiln with certain characteristics, I think it is fair to grant existence but acknowledge the difference.

You will find modern Zhuni largely mined from xiaomeiyao, zhaozhuang or benshan, but a lot of modern pots sold as Zhuni - an attractive marketing term - seem to kind of straddle a fine line with Hongni, or are heavily mixed with other parts of the ore, but there are some examples out there that have more pure Zhuni characteristics, although still very different from antique Zhuni. This is not a surprise because it would be sourced/processed/fired under very different conditions.

What I look for in modern Zhuni is a dense and smooth clay surface with few impurities, and a rather high ring. If it is too sandy or dull, it leans too far towards Hongni and is probably mixed for yield. Water beads and evaporates differently from denser Zhuni, and the differences in porosity allow it to preserve higher notes well whilst still contributing the benefits of clay in terms of thermal properties and mouthfeel.
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Bok
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Thu Apr 20, 2023 7:47 pm

Baiyun wrote:
Thu Apr 20, 2023 7:30 pm
As for modern Zhuni, it exists, and is only said not to exist by those who only consider antique Zhuni to deserve this name. However, based on the type of yellow ore it is made from, and the fact that this ore continues to be found, mined, and processed from various locations, and that pots made from this clay emerge from the kiln with certain characteristics, I think it is fair to grant existence but acknowledge the difference.

You will find modern Zhuni largely mined from xiaomeiyao, zhaozhuang or benshan, but a lot of modern pots sold as Zhuni - an attractive marketing term - seem to kind of straddle a fine line with Hongni, or are heavily mixed with other parts of the ore,
Hongni is actually now more rare than Zhuni(which is not rare at all), so it is likely the latter, blended with other ore, possibly not even from the region.

Antique Zhuni has always been blended, as they could not fire pure one without heavy losses. The exact recipes are unknown and there must have been many(plus adding other factors like firing etc.), in consequence "the" old Zhuni does not exist. Each period in general is different and in each period you again find more sub categories. It is confusing, mildly irritating and marvelous at the same time...

So actually, arguably, modern pure Zhuni is the real Zhuni and the old one is a Zhuni blend : )

Anyways, aforementioned differences and nuances in the cup are guaranteed lost on and of litte importance/consequence to the majority of tea drinkers. But they look pretty.
Last edited by Victoria on Thu Apr 20, 2023 8:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Mod edit: cleaned up quote
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Baiyun
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Thu Apr 20, 2023 7:51 pm

For the sake of adding a visual, here are two modern pots from the same maker. Both were sold as Zhuni, at different price points.

The one on the left I would call blended and closer to Hongni in appearance with lower quality clay as it has many impurities and is rather sandy.
The pot on the right is purer, denser, made thinner, with a higher ring, and I would not hesitate to call it modern Zhuni.
Antique Zhuni, then again, looks completely different.

The other modern Zhuni pots I have look very different, but they share the apparent density of the pot on the right. The pot on the left on the other hand looks a lot more like an impure version of the Factory 1 Xiao Hongni pot I recently acquired.
zhu.jpg
zhu.jpg (194.21 KiB) Viewed 1797 times
Thanks @Bok for the clarifications above whilst I was posting this!
Last edited by Baiyun on Thu Apr 20, 2023 7:58 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Bok
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Thu Apr 20, 2023 7:57 pm

Baiyun wrote:
Thu Apr 20, 2023 7:51 pm

The one on the left I would call blended and closer to Hongni in appearance with lower quality clay as it has many impurities and is rather sandy.
The pot on the right is purer, denser, made thinner, with a higher ring, and I would not hesitate to call it modern Zhuni.

Thanks Bok for the clarifications above whilst I was posting this!
Welcome!

I would caution to use thickness or impurities as a factor to authenticate Zhuni. Adding coarser bits to Zhuni has a long history and you can find it as a stylistic choice on very early Yixing, at least as early as Mid-Qing from what I have seen. Zhuni is a very close relative to Hongni(some say Zhuni is Hongni), so naturally not easy to tell apart. Zhuni can be dark and brownish as well, in fact the range of tones is dazzling in its variety.
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Baiyun
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Thu Apr 20, 2023 8:03 pm

Bok wrote:
Thu Apr 20, 2023 7:57 pm
I would caution to use thickness or impurities as a factor to authenticate Zhuni. Adding coarser bits to Zhuni has a long history and you can find it as a stylistic choice on very early Yixing, at least as early as Mid-Qing from what I have seen. Zhuni is a very close relative to Hongni(some say Zhuni is Hongni), so naturally not easy to tell apart. Zhuni can be dark and brownish as well, in fact the range of tones is dazzling in its variety.
By impurities I meant the various mica and sandy specks, which I understand to be absent on antiques and heavily reduced in finer selections of modern ore. Aside from the broad spectrum of colours these come out of the kiln with (different heat sources mattering a lot), which I trust to have overlap, are the raw ores not quite different between Hongni and Zhuni? Different colour, texture, water solubility, etc., that makes the differentiation between the clays more reasonable than pronouncing one to be a subcategory of the other?
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Bok
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Thu Apr 20, 2023 8:20 pm

Baiyun wrote:
Thu Apr 20, 2023 8:03 pm
By impurities I meant the various mica and sandy specks, which I understand to be absent on antiques
Not totally absent. Also for antiques there is almost no Hongni, most "red" ones are Zhuni, also the lower grade pots, so there is a lot of variety on them, some very fine and perfect, some coarse and unrefined.

Baiyun wrote:
Thu Apr 20, 2023 8:03 pm
the raw ores not quite different between Hongni and Zhuni? Different colour, texture, water solubility, etc., that makes the differentiation between the clays more reasonable than pronouncing one to be a subcategory of the other?
Maybe @Youzi can elaborate more, as far as I understand it Hongni is the category of which Zhuni is a subset. The old collectors mostly do it even less varied, Red and Purple clay, lol
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Baiyun
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Thu Apr 20, 2023 8:25 pm

Bok wrote:
Thu Apr 20, 2023 8:20 pm
The old collectors mostly do it even less varied, Red and Purple clay, lol
Haha gotta love this wise return to simplicity :D
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