Yixing

[Victoria]

Can anyone identify the maker's make and provide more info?

Hello,

I bought this pot at a second hand store because I thought it was neat and I hadn't seen many unglazed tea pots. I did a little research on and think its a high fired Yixing. I don't think its a fake based on some articles, but would appreciate some opinions from the experienced users here.

- Is it real Yixing?
- Can anyone translate the artist and maker's mark?
- Is it handmade or partially hand made?
- I read that they are best used with a single type of tea due to porosity. I also read the design features also lend itself towards specific types too. What tea family would this pot have been designed for (if any)

New member post moved here, maybe collector expert members can comment. Looks modern and partially handmade, but could be F1. With unglazed pots it’s best to pair with specific family of teas. This one looks like Zini and it might pair well with Hongcha, Shu or aged Sheng. I’m not an expert though, just use F1 Yixing a lot. Just a hunch, best to try using with various teas to decide on best pairing. If you’ve never used it you might need to reset it first.

[DailyTX]

Can anyone identify the maker's make and provide more info?

Hello,

I bought this pot at a second hand store because I thought it was neat and I hadn't seen many unglazed tea pots. I did a little research on and think its a high fired Yixing. I don't think its a fake based on some articles, but would appreciate some opinions from the experienced users here.

- Is it real Yixing?
- Can anyone translate the artist and maker's mark?
- Is it handmade or partially hand made?
- I read that they are best used with a single type of tea due to porosity. I also read the design features also lend itself towards specific types too. What tea family would this pot have been designed for (if any)

It looks like zini pot, size is about 200-300 ml, mold made, bottom mark translates “China Yixing”. Mark underneath the lid is the artist. The clay reminds me of 90s zini. Maybe other experts can chime in on dating the clay. For this larger size pot, I’d go with darker tea, such as aged oolong, puerh, hei Cha, liu bao, etc. Enjoy

[enjoi]

Hi Community,

can someone help me identify the following teapot? The person who owns it, claims its family owned for 45 years and was already old back then.
The volume of the pot is 700 ml. Does someone know the mark/seal on the bottom? What would be the value of this teapot, if it’s an old one?

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[.m.]

Hi Community,

can someone help me identify the following teapot? The person who owns it, claims its family owned for 45 years and was already old back then.
The volume of the pot is 700 ml. Does someone know the mark/seal on the bottom? What would be the value of this teapot, if it’s an old one?

I see these often on ebay. Probably ROC era export to Europe. Price depends on condition and quality of the decoration. Around 100USD, a bit more for a nice one.
EDIT: here's something similar https://www.ebay.fr/itm/Chinese-Terraco ... Sw8W9f3LPG

[enjoi]

I see these often on ebay. Probably ROC era export to Europe. Price depends on condition and quality of the decoration. Around 100USD, a bit more for a nice one.
EDIT: here's something similar https://www.ebay.fr/itm/Chinese-Terraco ... Sw8W9f3LPG

Thanks a lot for your answer and the ebay-link!

[Kolleh]

Looks, equally fine to me as the previous one, the price is much more friendly though. Qingshuini... Basically just refers to light brown clay most of the time, in case of modern pots, should be just Zini.

You don't have really dedicate pots to each tea. It's more like see what works best and just brew like that. I wouldn't worry much mixing teas in the same pot, just use soft, filtered water, and rinse and clean your pots after each use. Then if you want, you could just use one pot for everything. But using more pots are better, cuz teapots are pretty.

Especially this one is the most pretty so far.

Thank you! I do think this is one of my prettier ones, though I'm fond of all of them for different reasons. (And I think I got qingshuini mixed up with qinghuini, my bad.)

In any case, I obviously agree re:having lots of different pots. The more the merrier.

I'm going to post my last two pots. They're my favourites, so hopefully they won't turn out to be (total) fakes.

This is supposed to be a zhuni pot. I use it for green oolongs at the moment. It came from this shop: https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1 ... sqpttd836c

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[Kolleh]

Annnnd the last one, from this shop: https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1 ... sqpttd7e43

This pot was by far the most expensive, but, well...the cheery yellow flowers were hard to resist.

It also came with two clay cups in the shapes of flowers as well. I'm assuming the pot's at least partly handmade, purely because the holes leading to the spout aren't exactly the tidiest-looking, as you can see in the pics. I'm not really sure if that's a good thing or not, though.

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[steanze]

Annnnd the last one, from this shop: https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1 ... sqpttd7e43

This pot was by far the most expensive, but, well...the cheery yellow flowers were hard to resist.

It also came with two clay cups in the shapes of flowers as well. I'm assuming the pot's at least partly handmade, purely because the holes leading to the spout aren't exactly the tidiest-looking, as you can see in the pics. I'm not really sure if that's a good thing or not, though.

Unfortunately this one is not Yixing (or if it is it's mixed with a lot of other things)... I would not use this pot.

[steanze]

This is supposed to be a zhuni pot. I use it for green oolongs at the moment. It came from this shop: https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1 ... sqpttd836c

This one looks ok, sand mixed in to reduce shrinkage during firing.

[Balthazar]

Unfortunately this one is not Yixing (or if it is it's mixed with a lot of other things)... I would not use this pot.

The artist is (supposedly) Chen Dongzhu, many of his other "duanni" pieces does seem quite different (to my untrained eyes)... E.g. the one to the right here:

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(Or any of the ones in this video)

The pot description from his Baidu page (my emphasis):

《夏日山居》泥料取材选取江苏宜兴黄龙山开采的上等缎泥，将元代王蒙水墨山水画“夏日山居”转化成浮雕工艺，同紫砂艺术相结合创作出的新的艺术种类

The Taobao shop in question sells significantly more expensive pots from the same guy. No idea what (if anything?) the clay is mixed with, perhaps @Youzi can chime in.

[steanze]

The artist is (supposedly) Chen Dongzhu, many of his other "duanni" pieces does seem quite different (to my untrained eyes)... E.g. the one to the right here:

The Taobao shop in question sells significantly more expensive pots from the same guy. No idea what (if anything?) the clay is mixed with, perhaps Youzi can chime in.

Mmm this pot on the right looks wrong too. Hard to tell exactly what it's mixed with without running some tests, but it looks muddy/slurry and way too yellow. There are many kinds of duanni, but none that can look like that to my knowledge. If I had to guess, I'd say there probably isn't any duanni in those pots, they look like very liquid clay (not zisha) with some added colorant.

Unfortunately, the price is not very helpful to determine the quality of a pot, I have seen terrible pots on sale for very high prices

[Youzi]

Unfortunately this one is not Yixing (or if it is it's mixed with a lot of other things)... I would not use this pot.

The artist is (supposedly) Chen Dongzhu, many of his other "duanni" pieces does seem quite different (to my untrained eyes)... E.g. the one to the right here:



(Or any of the ones in this video)

The pot description from his Baidu page (my emphasis):

《夏日山居》泥料取材选取江苏宜兴黄龙山开采的上等缎泥，将元代王蒙水墨山水画“夏日山居”转化成浮雕工艺，同紫砂艺术相结合创作出的新的艺术种类

The Taobao shop in question sells significantly more expensive pots from the same guy. No idea what (if anything?) the clay is mixed with, perhaps Youzi can chime in.

Seems to me the same or similar. The clay used for the pots is definitely not zisha, or if it is, then it's heavily modified. The yellow color is achieved by titanium dioxide, I think. The teapots look like they are thrown to me, and the clay is similar to the ones shown in the video. Very fine grained clay and very pure (read heavily cleaned, treated). However on the outside it looks good? not as detailed as master yixing pots, but seems like it's carved out from the fine clay or some similar technique. It could be real (made by the guy), but it's not zisha or Yixing, or similar to it.

[Youzi]

This is supposed to be a zhuni pot. I use it for green oolongs at the moment. It came from this shop: https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1 ... sqpttd836c

I'd say it's also a locomotive, with pre-fired yellow ore pieces mixed into the clay to give it a spiky texture. the outside is probably coated with a red clay layer, because you can see the yellow pieces on the lid skirt, but not on the outside or inside.

I think the previous two pots, the Zini and the Duanni looks the best to my eyes.

[Kolleh]

Thank you for the helpful breakdown, everyone! So in the end, all of the pots I thought most likely to be decent quality weren't, and all of the ones I decided to buy anyway because they were cute, even if they might not be, were.

I'm mildly devastated the flower pot isn't zisha...I suppose as long as the clay isn't likely to be toxic, I can use it anyways for fun. Maybe for flavoured teas or something. If it is actually hand-carved, it seems so strange to me that they've bothered putting that much craftsmanship into something that isn't even using the real clay.

Would you say the egg-shaped mixed zhuni(?) pot is still worth using for teas, or should I be looking to pick up something better?

[Youzi]

Thank you for the helpful breakdown, everyone! So in the end, all of the pots I thought most likely to be decent quality weren't, and all of the ones I decided to buy anyway because they were cute, even if they might not be, were.

I'm mildly devastated the flower pot isn't zisha...I suppose as long as the clay isn't likely to be toxic, I can use it anyways for fun. Maybe for flavoured teas or something. If it is actually hand-carved, it seems so strange to me that they've bothered putting that much craftsmanship into something that isn't even using the real clay.

Would you say the egg-shaped mixed zhuni(?) pot is still worth using for teas, or should I be looking to pick up something better?

Probably it's for artistic reasons and not caring about Yixing traditions or making a good tea. This kind of mentality is quite common nowadays, many people are throwing pots too in yixing, cuz that's easier and faster than traditional slab building.

I'd say the red one is fine, and of course it's always a good thing to look for more and better teapots.