Yixing

[DailyTX]

Who else is drooling after seeing all those eye candies lol.

[OCTO]

Who else is drooling after seeing all those eye candies lol.

[OCTO]

Not a relatively old pot, but the clay has been decently aged before making it's final journey into the fiery kiln.... hahahahaha...

Cheers!!

IMG_0989.jpg (280.57 KiB) Viewed 3794 times

[DailyTX]

Not a relatively old pot, but the clay has been decently aged before making it's final journey into the fiery kiln.... hahahahaha...

Cheers!!

@OCTO
Beautiful zhuni pot , is it modern?

[OCTO]

OCTO
Beautiful zhuni pot , is it modern?

Yes it is. Aged ZhuNi (no idea for how long.. was told it's 60s), but newly made.

[Andrew S]

Nice indeed... How does it compare to ROC zhu ni?

(just assuming that you have some, and just trying to gawk at even more eye candy...)

Andrew

[OCTO]

Nice indeed... How does it compare to ROC zhu ni?

(just assuming that you have some, and just trying to gawk at even more eye candy...)

Andrew

In what areas are you looking to compare?? Need the expertise of @Bok and @steanze

[Andrew S]

Trying to learn everything that I can. If this clay is from the 60s, and if you have no reason to doubt that, then it looks like a fascinating opportunity to learn about what's changed in terms of things such as processing and firing between then and now.

It's one thing to read about what's changed, and another thing to see it in different pots (let alone to taste it). I'm curious to learn about things like how different processing, ageing and firing can change porosity, texture, effect on tea...

There's a limit to what I can learn all the way from over here, but I'd be glad to hear anything that people can offer on fun topics like this.

Andrew

[DailyTX]

@Andrew S
Yixing clay is not a pure raw product, and changes could happened in any step. Recently I was looking up heixingtu/black star clay from early to mid 80s F1. I own 3 of those pots, each pot has different color shade, about the same texture, the characteristic meets the definition of how this clay is described, and the craftsmanship meets pots from that period. Unless it’s from the same batch of clay fired at the same time, I think the end product will vary.

[OCTO]

Andrew S
Yixing clay is not a pure raw product, and changes could happened in any step. Recently I was looking up heixingtu/black star clay from early to mid 80s F1. I own 3 of those pots, each pot has different color shade, about the same texture, the characteristic meets the definition of how this clay is described, and the craftsmanship meets pots from that period. Unless it’s from the same batch of clay fired at the same time, I think the end product will vary.

Well explained +1

[TeaTotaling]

Not a relatively old pot, but the clay has been decently aged before making it's final journey into the fiery kiln.... hahahahaha...

Cheers!!

Quite the fiery specimen you have there A couple questions come to mind after a recent encounter with a modern made Zhuni, using aged clay (20+ years).

1. Are the walls on your pot thin?

2. In your experience, are all legitimate Zhuni pots thin?? I know you have handled your fare share and might have a more informed clue, than I.

I raise this question out curiosity, and a genuine desire to learn. I have only handled two Zhuni pots. One from the LQ/RoC, which is paper thin and extremely delicate. The other, modern, using aged clay. The modern made offering certainly doesn't feel delicate, and the walls are thick and dense. For a ~160ml pot it weighs in @ ~114g's, without the lid! The texture of the clay is incredibly smooth and glass like. Definitely dense, no pores to be found with the naked eye.

Any personal insights or observations from the collective, would be helpful. There are certainly a few members who have handled a wide range of Zhuni.

[Bok]

2. In your experience, are all legitimate Zhuni pots thin?? I know you have handled your fare share and might have a more informed clue, than I.

If I may, Zhuni can certainly be the thinnest of all Yixing clays, but it does not have to be. Among old pots I have handled pretty much everything from paper-thin to a solid thickness. Same for textures, from the satiny-velvety-soft to dense glass-like clays, even underfired-slightly chalky-porousy there is a dazzling array of Zhunis out there. Not even mentioning the colour spectrum...

[TeaTotaling]

2. In your experience, are all legitimate Zhuni pots thin?? I know you have handled your fare share and might have a more informed clue, than I.

If I may, Zhuni can certainly be the thinnest of all Yixing clays, but it does not have to be. Among old pots I have handled pretty much everything from paper-thin to a solid thickness. Same for textures, from the satiny-velvety-soft to dense glass-like clays, even underfired-slightly chalky-porousy there is a dazzling array of Zhunis out there. Not even mentioning the colour spectrum...

Thanks @Bok, exactly the insight I was after. So, it's not necessarily a defining characteristic. As to be expected, many variables and variations within the same category. The piece I handled was made by 许福军, who is recognized as a Zhuni specialist. I suppose if one were to have access to genuine, original ore aged Zhuni, it might be him. I often read stories about Zhuni being extinct, and vendors passing Hongni off as Zhuni. I'm sure it's rare to have access to the original ore these days, if it's in fact still being mined, but I imagine the right people might have a stash of original ore aging away. Available only to a tight circle of artists.

[steanze]

Thanks Bok, exactly the insight I was after. So, it's not necessarily a defining characteristic. As to be expected, many variables and variations within the same category. The piece I handled was made by 许福军, who is recognized as a Zhuni specialist. I suppose if one were to have access to genuine, original ore aged Zhuni, it might be him. I often read stories about Zhuni being extinct, and vendors passing Hongni off as Zhuni. I'm sure it's rare to have access to the original ore these days, if it's in fact still being mined, but I imagine the right people might have a stash of original ore aging away. Available only to a tight circle of artists.

+1 old zhuni pots can be thin or thick.

Zhuni ore is not extinct, it is still being mined. It is actually not that rare as an ore. Zhuni from the Zhaozhuang mine is harder to get, I don't think it's currently being mined (but ask @Youzi for the details about current mining activities). However, the details of the processing method that was used in late Qing / early Republic are not fully known, and modern pieces usually don't turn out quite like the antiques, either because of the additives used, or the sifting process, or the wood fire kiln vs gas kiln differences.

[Andrew S]

Thanks @OCTO and @DailyTX. I guess that teapots can really only be understood properly on a teapot-by-teapot basis. Probably means I need to buy more teapots... Or that I've got to move my life to a more teapot-friendly country.

My dream of finding a hypothetical perfect comparison between LQER and modern teapot-making techniques will have to wait.

Now... speaking of zhu ni, surprisingly thick clay, etc... this seems as good a time as ever to post my other "Is it fake?" pot photos for wiser minds to consider. My apologies in advance for bothering everyone. I think that this will be my last such request for a while. This one I'm less confident about than the other one. Not because I don't 'trust' the person from whom I got it, but rather because I don't trust the price that I got it for. The colour of the full-teapot photo is the more realistic one, though it does seem to change when it's warm.

In any event, it brews old iu an and heavily-roasted yan cha very well for me, so don't worry about breaking my heart with bad news about the provenance of this one.

Andrew