Yixing

[DailyTX]

Andrew S
2 out of 3 are supposedly from the 80s, 1 of them maybe late 80s early 90s.

#3 heixingtu? If so this would be my 1st choice

@Chadrinkincat
I believe it's heixingtu but it's more of a speculation. The color tone seems more purplish-red than brown. The texture is alike my dicaoqing but too many black dots to be dicaoqing. I tagged a Chinese article about heixingtu possibly started in the green sticker period in earlier post, and the author mentioned that heixingtu in late 70s and early 80s has a reddish color tone due to base material difference. If this pot is heixingtu, then it may be my oldest heixingtu pot.

[Bok]

Brought this old Zisha pot with the bling bling upgrade tuning to the in-laws for the mid autumn holidays… just the right pot to deal with more people and all sorts of teas to fend off the damage of too much food.

[DailyTX]

Brought this old Zisha pot with the bling bling upgrade tuning to the in-laws for the mid autumn holidays… just the right pot to deal with more people and all sorts of teas to fend off the damage of too much food.

@Bok
What tea are you planning to drink for mid autumn’s holiday? I have been thinking about tea pairing with lotus seed moon cake

[Bok]

@DailyTX took some roasted Taiwanese oolong with me, also got a tin of HK high roast tieguanyin gifted, which will be a very good match for the occasion.

Apparently from a famous HK teashop. Tried it already and it’s not the usual death roast à la Fukien Tea Co, but a more refined version of classic HK tea. It’s got some age on it, which might have helped to tame the robust character.

[DailyTX]

DailyTX took some roasted Taiwanese oolong with me, also got a tin of HK high roast tieguanyin gifted, which will be a very good match for the occasion.

Apparently from a famous HK teashop. Tried it already and it’s not the usual death roast à la Fukien Tea Co, but a more refined version of classic HK tea. It’s got some age on it, which might have helped to tame the robust character.

very thoughtful

[Balthazar]

Yes, that type of seal is used in green label pots. It is not particularly rare. The qingsuini pots with that seal have pretty good clay in my opinion, although not as good as some earlier F1 zini and some ROC zini. The estimate that 9/10 are replicas is optimistic in my opinion, at this point the ratio of replicas is even higher... 360-720usd seems too high for those pots. I won't say what I think about the one in the link because of the policy on commenting only on member-owned pots... OCTO has good eyes

@steanze and anyone else with an opinion: This is the supposedly green label qingsuini pot (flash on last image). Any red flags?

[steanze]

Yes, that type of seal is used in green label pots. It is not particularly rare. The qingsuini pots with that seal have pretty good clay in my opinion, although not as good as some earlier F1 zini and some ROC zini. The estimate that 9/10 are replicas is optimistic in my opinion, at this point the ratio of replicas is even higher... 360-720usd seems too high for those pots. I won't say what I think about the one in the link because of the policy on commenting only on member-owned pots... OCTO has good eyes

steanze and anyone else with an opinion: This is the supposedly green label qingsuini pot (flash on last image). Any red flags?

I cannot be 100% sure from pictures, but this looks like early 80s zini to me. The texture seems a bit finer than qingshuini, and I'd guess it is a bit darker too (although it's hard to be sure that it's not an effect of color balance)

[Andrew S]

Apologies in advance for using up the time of anyone who replies, but, while we're on the topic...

I think this was sold to me years ago simply as a green label zisha, but I've assumed that it is qingshuini as opposed to zini. Any thoughts?

I suppose it doesn't really matter; it makes nice aged tea (especially liu bao). But I am curious.

Andrew

[Bok]

I think this was sold to me years ago simply as a green label zisha, but I've assumed that it is qingshuini as opposed to zini. Any thoughts?

We’ll, any Qingshuini is Zini.

QSH is a very loosely defined term, just means clean unadulterated clay. And some use that to describe certain batches of Zini, mostly of the factory period. Same as some collectors use the even wider term Zisha to refer to a typical kind of Zini on antiques. But anyways as you said don’t worry too much about it, not so important what it is, than what it can do.

But the clay most people mean by when they use that term is probably what your pot is made of.

[Andrew S]

Thanks @Bok. Learning about clay mostly from online photos is a bit tricky...

And yes, apologies, I did mean qing shui ni as a particular Factory 1 subset of zini, versus zini more generally. I assume that that's what people mean when they refer to qing shui ni. Of course, if you just call it zisha like this seller did from memory, then no-one can really complain about anything being misrepresented.

I also thought that I read around here at some point that qing shui ni in LQER times or thereabouts was a description of the strata that the clay came from, in contradistinction to what we might now call di cao qing, but again, I may have misunderstood or misremembered.

And I have no idea what hong qing shui ni is; presumably, another batch or subset of zini during Factory 1 times (though a lot of them seem to be under-fired from what I can tell, and I'm not sure if that is part of it).

Much to learn, I guess. So long as learning about clay remains fun, and not tedious, I'll keep going.

Andrew

[Kolleh]

New friends!

Bought these from a vendor who seems very sincere about his work, and has also regularly given me discounts and free teas when I visit, so I don't entirely mind if they aren't the Genuine Article. Though he seemed convinced they were.

Anyways, they're adorable. The red one in particular is gorgeous in person. The duanni is a bit stained from being preused, but look at the fun shape!

[DailyTX]

New friends!

Bought these from a vendor who seems very sincere about his work, and has also regularly given me discounts and free teas when I visit, so I don't entirely mind if they aren't the Genuine Article. Though he seemed convinced they were.

Anyways, they're adorable. The red one in particular is gorgeous in person. The duanni is a bit stained from being preused, but look at the fun shape!

The brown one looks cute. Reminds me of the old water bucket

[Kolleh]

Brought this old Zisha pot with the bling bling upgrade tuning to the in-laws for the mid autumn holidays… just the right pot to deal with more people and all sorts of teas to fend off the damage of too much food.

That's gorgeous. I haven't seen many zisha pots with modern twists like that.

[Kolleh]

The brown one looks cute. Reminds me of the old water bucket

Right?

The lid fits a bit oddly. It seems like wasn't made with those little built-in filters that stop leaves from going up the spout, so the vendor put a little mesh thing in there that serves the same purpose. And the stamp on the bottom is unusual to my untrained eyes, but also extremely cute. (Hearts!) Just looking at it makes me happy, honestly.

He told me it would be best to use with white tea and gave me a bag of aged Gongmei to try with it, so I'll give that a shot sometime over the long weekend. (He also suggested green tea, which was weird, since I'm under the impression that's almost always better made in glass or thin porcelain.)

[Andrew S]

(He also suggested green tea, which was weird, since I'm under the impression that's almost always better made in glass or thin porcelain.)

I think that this might be one of those things about which there are no strict 'rules', but just recommendations based on people's personal experiences and preferences.

Some people like brewing green tea or unroasted wulong in zini or duanni, whereas other people prefer those types of tea in zhuni, porcelain or glass.

You can have fun experimenting and seeing which methods you prefer (or perhaps seeing what the differences are between the different methods, and thinking about when you might prefer one instead of another).

I like brewing high mountain wulong in zini, because it can feel more fresh, lively, and mineral compared to a gaiwan, but that's just my own preference. Most people would probably prefer a gaiwan.

Andrew