The (Western) Yixing market

[Baisao]

Part of it is also of course for cultural reasons -- a popular artistic shape is the bundle of sticks, I imagine to show that there is strength through solidarity, but a bundle of sticks has a slang meaning in America that would be immediately picked up by their friends.

What does Milo Yiannopoulos have to do with teapots?

[klepto]

I visit some European tea houses in America from time to time and grumble about just bad European teapot designs .
They take a thimble worth of tea and throw it in a gigantic leaky teapot, even if I am drinking an oolong it tastes like !@#$.
The cakes, cookies and tarts are the real attraction for me. I am going to have to keep some of my own teaware and tea in
my favorite places. I drink tea, read books and nod off . </rant>

I don't like fancy yixing teapots, so I lean more towards the utilitarian side of things. I want yixing teapots that work best
with my favorite tea types and perform their tasks well. Fighting with yixing teapots as they dribble out tea or they are
unwieldy would drive me crazy

[pantry]

Part of it is also of course for cultural reasons -- a popular artistic shape is the bundle of sticks, I imagine to show that there is strength through solidarity, but a bundle of sticks has a slang meaning in America that would be immediately picked up by their friends.

What does Milo Yiannopoulos have to do with teapots?

I didn't know this until now

[Bok]

However, the curve is bathtub-shaped. British and American auction-houses semi-regularly carry artistic Yixing that goes for quite high prices, but these are bought by art collectors who are not terribly interested in tea-making. Cast-mold versions of famous works are also sold as novelties at brick-and-mortar teashops but are not actively sought out.

If I look around on social media, there seem to be quite a lot of what I would consider fancy pots(usually in terrible clay and quality), the Dungeons& Dragons-tea-drinking faction is probably not averse to bamboo and tree-shaped teaware

But I'd agree that in general there is a distinction in people who care more about tea and those who care more about teaware. Even in Asia it is rare to find people who are equally good in making tea as they are in collecting teapots. Usually they are experts in one or the other.

So for me, I am always more careful about buying tea if the teashop has amazing teaware in use...