faj wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2019 7:48 pm
Thanks for the pointers. Mud and leaves, which I had stumbled upon, seem to have many items in their store when I checked a couple of minutes ago. Or do you mean they have fewer products than before?
Those are good examples of vendors that "look good" from an outsider's perspective. The products are expensive enough that it might not be junk clay and craftsmanship (no disrespect intended here, just saying I would not be fooled by a 10$ pot). Mud and leaves, which I checked out before, has a quite extensive website, with much information. How reliable is hard for me to tell due to inexperience. How can I know the products are good, and the nice website is not just a nice coat of paint over a shady business?
I would like to understand what makes you comfortable to recommending their products as safe and worthy of the claims made. Once again no disrespect meant here, just trying to learn.
I also don't like to trust others, so instead I prefer to look at their financial and economical interests. M&L's main marketing and their core business is high quality Ruyao, Jingdezhen Porcelain and Yixing teapots, as opposed to most other western vendors who's main focus is tea, like YS, King Tea Mall, etc.
If someone would find out, that there are problems with their Yixings, than it'd be a huge blow to their core business unlike it would be for YS. If their goal is to stay in business for a long time and allow them to have a good life and stable income, then it'd be totally counter productive to sell low quality pots and always risk them selves to go out of business. "It takes years to build up a good reputation and one minute to tear it down".
On another hand, I do quite a lot of research about Yixing clay processing and Yixing clays in specific, and reading through their blog I haven't found anything that would go against what I heard from other potters and found during my research. There's no point in educating your customers about how to spot low quality pots and tell the difference between various clays. It just increases the chance of your "scam" business to fall apart.
If you don't mind me asking could you check out the article I wrote about the main kinds of Zisha ores? I wrote it for the reason to help newcomers get a quick overall knowledge of clays on which they can build on. Here's the topic with the ongoing discussion:
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=1198
faj wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2019 7:48 pm
Your statement that Jiangponi is cheap enough to not be worth faking is something I find interesting. I do not know if this is a statement that would be widely recognized as fact (seems plausible prima facie), but it has the merit of relying on disincentives to faking, not chains of trust. In other words, if this is true, then there is a factual basis, even for an uninformed person, to think that a product using that clay is less likely to be unsafe or with chemical additions.
Maybe, as Shine Magical said, it is hard for a newbie without help to purchase something decent. I could be sold something worthless or dangerous, and unless it smells funny or looks obviously very low quality, there is no way I would know. It is easy to think that good fakes probably fool knowledgeable people who would probably think of themselves as (almost) immune to scams.
The reason it's cheap is because they discovered it during the 90's and there is still ongoing large-scale mining. There are two mines One near Huang Long Shan and One near Qing Long Shan. QLS produces Huang (Yellow) Jiangponi and the HLS one produces Hong(Red) Jiangponi. You can check this article together with the on on M&L site:
http://www.yirenchupin.com/14785.html (use google translate, chrome, it's also a good site in general with lots of great information)
Also, unless you go really low on price there are no chemical or harmful teapots made in Yixing. (price is price in china, most western vendors have at least a 100% markup on new pots). I'd say the threshold is around 300-400 rmb. Those pots are not pure or too high quality clay either, but not harmful. They are just a waste of money because they won't give you the effect of what a real Yixing should give. Usually the pots harmful for your health is the slipcase ones and maybe the machine made "half-hand" pots.
Currently the problem on the Yixing market is, that the average Chinese customer doesn't want a good "real" Yixing teapot. They just want a "Da Hong Pao" or "Zhuni" with exquisite design, which are as red as blood and without any imperfections. And of course it should be shiny too, because they don't have time for the patina to develop. So it should look expensive but don't be more than 400 yuan.
In order to serve the majority of these customers most studios use Waishan Ni (外山泥) clay from other part of china, clear it with acid, to remove the black spots, add iron oxide to make it more red, decrease the porosity to 0 to have high pitch tone when they low fire it in order to have good yield and bam, you have your average Yixing, which isn't harmful for your health and perfectly good for making tea, but this teapot has little to none to do with what a real Yixing teapot should be like.
If I wasn't clear I apologize for my rambling.