Processing, clay, everything else aside here I would urge caution and take a step back from what I think is a slippery slope here with generalizing statements about east, west, and willingness to pay for things. at risk of brushing up against something that has for the better not surfaced much on this forum to me things like this really start dancing around my nerves in regards to class and economic status.Bok wrote: ↑Fri Aug 28, 2020 9:07 amWell it depends on the definition of top money. From personal observation, for most Westerners the limit for what they are willing to spend for quality teaware is around 500$, which is far from what are considered premium teapots in Asia. Not saying below priced are not good pots, far from it, but definitely not the upper segment.alejandro2high wrote: ↑Fri Aug 28, 2020 8:43 amI don't see this being an issue. YZG and Yinchen both sell pots with clay processed in a hand-powered stone mills, and these pots are not much more expensive than their pots processed in a modern way. YZG has even posted videos of them using one of the aforementioned stone mills. Furthermore, I think that the idea that the western market is not willing to pay top money for teaware is simply not true. If this was the case, we would all be buying yixing from amazon or ebay, and YZG wouldn't be selling pots made by Senior Master of Arts and Crafts and Nationaly Certified Research-level Senior Master of Arts and Crafts.Bok wrote: ↑Thu Aug 27, 2020 12:53 amMoney.
Traditional methods are more labour and time intensive, more costs that the end-consumer might care little about and is not willing to pay for. Easy to forget that the Western Yixing market is but a little tiny niche of the overall market, so for the studios probably easy to ignore, especially as this is the market which is the least willing to pay top money for teaware.
As far as traditional processing in modern pots, as nice as videos and claims are, I am as sceptical as I would be with “1000y old tree-wild tea” and the like. Nice stories but hard to verify. Might be true, might be not. Might be done, but not necessarily with the pot that you are getting in the end.
The failure rate for many of the old techniques was quite high, which makes it less attractive to pursue nowadays. Take black bones firing in Zhuni. An accident of old, some studios tried to replicate it, with only very few pieces surviving it, so it was abandoned in the end...
first I think a big consideration is access here- both to knowledge and to product in that many people in the west may not have the knowledge to make higher end pot purchases, or if they do and have the means may not know who/where to contact to make higher end purchases. but even if the desire is there without traveling I think one is unlikely to find many extremely high end pots available in say North America or Europe (maybe I'm dead wrong here though) and I think anyone who is in the know is going to have serious thoughts about spending $500+ on a pot they haven't at least seen in person.
beyond that though and what is giving me pause here a bit here is while I know the market exists, and perhaps this is my own ignorance of what portion of their income average people in asian countries or even other people here are willing to spend on tea, spending anywhere close to $500 on a pot, or even more has very little to do with willingness and probably a lot more to do with people's economic reality. while most people don't care about tea at all, I think its important we all keep in mind how relative all this talk about pricing is, especially on the high price and/or quality end of the spectrum. I imagine most people anywhere without extremely high disposable income levels don't buy $500 pots very often either, and rather that a collection of pots gets built up over many many years of luck, trading, selling, deals through friends, etc. my interest in nice pots and/or tea like anyone else's is tempered by my economic reality, and that this is a hobby and interest and not a profession for me. I don't feel hostile or jealous about what anyone else has - I get what I can that is of interest to me and within my means and I enjoy it very much despite the fact that what might be very average or uninteresting to someone else may be very special for me. but the inability to purchase teapots that for many people fall into the category of a month of rent, a mortgage payment, a student loan payment, or even maybe most of what they live off of in a month has absolutely nothing to do with their level of interest, passion, or willingness to spend on something.
I don't think you or anyone else means to make a hostile statement, and by that same account I'm not trying to drag my personal politics into a tea forum, but I do think its important we watch how we start to talk about these things less we sound like we are being dismissive to those who can't afford what is deemed sufficient quality by others or on the upper end for their means. we are talking about and sharing a passion for a niche interest here which is great, but I think we do still need to keep in mind how much some of this can have to do with socio-economic status as much as personal connections or passion.
I think for me a lot of what I am trying to say can relate to what @Balthazar is bringing up here too. The value of an object comes in many forms- sometimes that is age, sometimes it is assigned personally or situationally. I'm sure even folks here who have museum quality antiques probably have some pretty sub-par pieces they hang on to because they carry some personal significance.