DECIPHERING A FULLY-HANDMADE YIXING ZISHA POT
Fully-Handmade ZiSha pots come at great expense of time, efforts, learning, practice, years of dedication: the preparation of the tools prior to crafting the pot, the proper treatment and assessment of the brick of clay prior to use, performing the tedious and gruelling 110+ steps of Fully-handmaking a ZiSha pot, refining the surfaces of the ZiSha Work, the firing of the pot, three times, at the kiln. At least three times, sometimes four. We have not even mentioned the hard work of the workers mining the ores, to the picking, separation and processing of the ZiSha ore into the bricks of clay.
We cherish every single Fully-Handmade ZiSha pot that we hold in our hands.
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QUICK FACTS. TO TELL whether a pot is a Fully-Handmade ZiSha pot 全手工紫砂壶, or is a Jigger-machined non-ZiSha ceramic clay pot 机车非紫砂壶.
We need to observe the pot and then depend on the COMBINATION of many factors:
1) the 形体 Xing Ti of the pot. Does it look coherent, do the lines point to a lazy worker from factory line working fast to churn out many jigger-machined pots. Do the designs/embellishments reek of overzealous Orientalism, do they give you goose-pimples? Does the spout look correct? Many of the jigger-machined pots and many DaiGong pots that cost $5,000, look "stiff" and lacking the naturality, the flowing, fluid Qi 气 and Yun 韵 that a Fully-Handmade ZiSha pot crafted by a Great Craftsman and Artist. In order to tell the fakes-pretenders vs the real, legitimate, elegant and proper ZiSha Works, one does need a lot of practice, looking and looking, looking at and observing proper FHM ZiSha pots from respectable Craftsmen and Artists (not involved in 代工 DaiGong dishonest practices). Remember that 90% of L1 and L2 Senior Artists now are already engaged in the dishonest DaiGong 代工 industry (the pots with their stamps are NOT made by them but by lesser skilled workers). Do spend your time looking at Proper, honest, TOP Craftsmen and Artists' works here at all our sections, and sharpen your acumen. Do so, and train your eyes.
Xing Ti is one of the most important factors. If the Xing Ti is wrong, one does NOT even need to pick up the pot and judge anymore. If the Xing Ti is wrong, the pot cannot be a Fully-Handmade ZiSha pot.
2) the 内壁 inner-wall. The patterns, the "fluffiness", and how they look and behave in straight and curved inner walls after firing.
3) the 手感 feel.
ZiSha versus Non-ZiSha, faked-“ZiSha” pots:
Dearest Friends, a pot made from ZiSha will feel to the touch:
1. MOIST,
2. GRAINY, yet amazingly:
3. SMOOTH, WHEN ONE PULLS/DRAGS THE FINGER PULP SKIN ALONG THE SURFACE!
--> Never CATCHING nor PRICKLY TO YOUR SKIN BEING PULLED ALONG THE SURFACE.
Non-ZiSha, Fake "ZiSha" pots would FEEL:
1. DRY and PARCHED, VERY DRY,
2. and PATINA IS NEVER ACHIEVED AFTER USE. This afflicts most of the fake “Zi Sha” pots on the market.
3. PRICKLY. Many jigger-machining bosses would throw in grainy ceramic fine sand, sediments, in order to impart the much often sought after, and attractive appearance of that: SANDY & GRAINY TEXTURE! They know this is very attractive to Newcomers, and hence they do this to create a sort of depth and layering to such fake-ZiSha pots made of cheap (really cheap) base ceramic clay.
Authentic ZISHA POTS, even IF WORKED FROM LOW SIEVE COUNT ZISHA CLAY with bigger sandy/grainy particles, will still: NEVER feel prickly to touch/dragging your finger skin along its surface :-D !!! ALTHOUGH HIGHLY SANDY/GRAINY, THEIR SURFACE WILL STILL FEEL SMOOTH TO TOUCH! WHY? BECAUSE the Fully-Handmaking Craftsman SPEND TWO DAYS on doing Ming Zhen (上明针) refining work on the surface prior to submitting the pot for firing! A Craftman takes THE FIRST day/night to do up the basic components of the pot (doing up the body with attached spout and handle, doing up the lid with attached lid knob), and the SUBSEQUENT TWO DAYS/NIGHTS to do the refining work.
There is the OTHER type of Non-ZiSha pots which, INSTEAD of feeling dry and parched:
…actually FEELS OILY AND SLIPPERY. This afflicts many of the fake “Zhu Ni pots on the market. These industries make these fake "ZiSha pot" SHINY/SLIPPERY in the bid to mimic the moist appearance of ZiSha pots. How? They apply VASELINE. Yes, they apply vaseline.
If the boss of the jigger-machining/slip-casting operations is "cleverer", he would order his men to throw in some ZiSha ores into the bulk of his cheap ceramic mix, and the resultant fake pot can achieve a certain degree of moist-ness, and after use, a slight patina may be formed. This patina is VERY slight, and reaches its low plateau despite many years and sessions of use.
A Fully-Handmade ZiSha pot CAN be nurtured with use and tea steepings, and after time achieve: the DEFINITE FORMATION OF A BEAUTIFUL PATINA 包浆 that is TOTALLY UN-IMITABLE. Our friends and patrons here who bought our Craftsmen’s works:
HAVE REACHED TREMENDOUS levels of PATINA FORMATION even with our e.g. $182+ pots from Craftsmen Chen Fa Chu and Zhang Huan, $209+ pots from Chen Hua Jun and Chen Gui Zhi, and $227+ pots from Craftsmen Wang Xing, Zhai Yi Yao, etc! Rest assured. These trusted Craftsmen utilise superb quality ZiSha clays, not just ZiSha clays. Our customers often showed us their pots in person, months after purchase and usage, the patina formed are amazing: the pots look and feel moist, pearly/jade-like but without the oily-ness nor stickiness. The patina looks shiny and moist BUT the pots do not feel oily, slick nor slippery at all!!
THIS IS THE STAR QUALITY OF PROPER FULLY-HANDMADE ZISHA POTS worked tediously and METICULOUSLY from proper ZiSha and gruelling preparation + crafting + firing steps!
Non-ZiSha, FAKE "ZiSha" pots, even after ten years of use, will look and feel dry and parched for they are incapable of a good patina formation, nor any patina at all.
4) the 重量/密度 weight of the pot. More often than not, jigger-machined pots weight heavier: they ARE denser! Jigger-machining entails the use of clays (pastey cheap clays that are non-ZiSha or, mixed with some poor quality ZiSha) that can be jigger-machined. Such clays ARE denser. YiXing ZiSha can only be slab-built, they are relatively unyielding and hard, and brittle/crumbly. They are the most difficult clay to work on in the world too.
Many other less important parameters which can be found in our YouTube channel videos. Thank you dearest Friends and Buddies in Fully-Handmade ZiSha Art and craft!!! Thank you!
Dear Friends :-D, an update: ALL of us experienced friends and patrons with us, do know how to tell a Fully-Handmade ZiSha pot from a fake "Fully-Handmade" pot that is formed from non-ZiSha ceramic clays and from Jigger-machined processes. We also wish to ask newcomers to Kindly Note that: the absence or presence of the Man Pian 满片 and/or Di Pian 底片 seam cannot SINGULARLY point to whether a pot is a FHM ZiSha pot or not. For example, the Fully-Handmaking Artist or Craftsman OFTEN WISH to ADD a bit more clay to REFINE and smoothen the outside area around the circumferential ManPian 满片 or DiPian 底片 seams, and thus smearing off the presence of these natural Man Pian/Di Pian seams.*
Also, these ManPian and DiPian seams are NOWADAYS OFTEN FAKED on by non-Fully-Handmade pots (yes, those ubiqitous jigger-machined, slip-casted pots): the factory boss nowadays, often INSTRUCT his workers to swivel a tool and cut a line to FAKE the ManPian/DiPian seams. NOT ONLY THAT, the factor bosses recently have new MOLDS that INHERENTLY have a seam on the top circumference and bottom circumference so that the jigger-machined pot that pops out of it, will bear such FAKE MANPIAN AND DIPIAN SEAMS!
Just be aware.
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We have not mentioned: the tens of thousands sold per week: of fake "F1 pots, from private stashes acquired from ..." and fake "wood-fired kiln" pots which are actually just cheap, non-zisha, common ceramic pots sprinkled/sprayed with glaze, that easily dupe both Westerners AND local Chinese people alike. Many consumers fell for them and the "back stories". There are entire industries and operations in Anhui and YiXing geared up to produce multitudes of fake f1 pots besides just fake zisha pots.
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OWNING A FULLY-HANDMADE ZISHA WORK FROM OUR REALZISHA CRAFTSMEN AND ARTISTS:
Hold one, hold up one, swing the work around. Carefully examine his Fully-Handmade work. Look at it from afar, from near, and it will grow on you, THE XING TI 形体 form will grow on you, with its timeless aesthetics, design and cohesion. With fine detailing with MUCH THOUGHT on each part. With MUCH TIME spent on every part, section. Because this is what Fully-Handmade ZiSha Art should be, and WHY FULLY-HANDMADE ZISHA ART is so different from and light years ahead of the ubiquitous jigger-machined pots and half-handmade pots masquerading under the sales tagline of "fully-handmade zisha" pots. These latter JM/HHM pots are made in what we call 流水线 a.k.a. 'Factory-Line operation' whereby the main pot body after being jigger-machined or coming off from the mould, is passed to the next worker who fits on the spout, and subsequently this second worker will pass the pot on to another worker who will in turn fit on the handle. Continuing so, the pressed lid is likewise passed to another worker who fit on the lid knob. EACH WORKER has NO IDEA what the other one is doing, and they are always working on fixed time lines stated by the boss. For example, the worker being "passed the baton" a pot with the spout just fixed onto the body by his colleague, will only focus on fixing on the handle, with nil to little regard to WHETHER THE HANDLE fixed on will be cohesive with the spout. Each worker has NO idea of HOW THE FINAL POT WILL LOOK LIKE. Beyond poor craftsmanship and clay, the result of such processes are ugly pots with poor cohesiveness which experienced Artists, Craftsmen and collectors will tell from a metre away. Experienced people in us, do not need to pick up a pot to check whether it is fully-handmade or made of ZiSha, we can tell from a metre away just by looking at the pot.
The keywords are: Detailing and Cohesiveness.
A GOOD Fully-Handmade ZiSha Work combines great detailing and cohesiveness.
HERE AT REALZISHA, YOU ARE GETTING ALL PREMIUM WORKS at the lowest prices, most even lower than what our local Chinese patrons are paying.
You are not paying premium prices.
It is the amazing reverse:
You are getting premium crafts at the most astounding, LOWEST PRICES :-D made possible through our combined hard work.
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There are millions of fake ZiSha pots sold per year, hundreds of thousands sold per week.
They pervade many online sites, platforms, Taobao, with the typical pretty, commercially-worked photos,
If you have gotten fake “ZiSha” pots from such retailers, it is often not the retailers who are intentionally duping you, it is the retailers THEMSELVES who were duped higher upstream: by manufacturers and the suppliers.
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Now we move on to the subject of “Aged Clays” touted and marketed by various story-telling retailers, even from within China. You have to be much aware.
Notice that even though our OWN Cao Family have ores mined since our great-grandfather SINCE THE 1920s and with ores and clays stored and collected since the 1920s, we did ZERO mention in all our ZiSha works on our pages, and we did not sell any of our Grand Master Cao Ya Lin, Grand Master Cao Yan Lin, Premier Master Cao An Xiang, Senior Master Cao Lan Fang works purporting to be “made from clay that have been processed from ores in the 1920s/1950s/1970s and have been aged for thirty years from our/their ancestors’ vault”?
Or example, notice that all the pots crafted by Grand Master Shao Shun Sheng made zero mention of some "special heritage/aged” clays that have been retrieved from his family heirloom? Knowing that Shao Shun Sheng IS THE DIRECT LINEAGE 6th GENERATION ZISHA MASTER from the legendary Shao Da Heng from the Qing Dynasty, would you not believe that he would have much ores and clays passed down to him for more than a hundred years? Of course he has. However, notice that our Cao Family, Shao Shun Sheng and other Grand Masters made ZERO mention of their works being “crafted from aged, heritage, family-heirloom” clays? Yes indeed, we do not talk like this, YiXing ZiSha fraternity does not talk like this. We do not function like this.
WHAT matters is: Ores are picked cleanly, with the impurities carefully discarded. The truth is that, in our fraternity, there is an OPTIMUM time whereby a brick of clay is being utilised to craft into pots, after it is processed from the ore. This optimum period Is between two to five years.
Yes, we repeat:
After the ore is being processed into the brick of clay, and left to stand for two to five years,
The pot that is crafted from this clay, will be at its zenith quality and state.
You may easily picture this:
After the ore is being processed into a brick of clay and packed, the brick would be left to stand. If you have ever handled and stored a brick of ZiSha clay, you will notice that due to gravitational pull, moisture will seep downwards over time, and gradually the top half of the brick will become drier, and drier. In fact a layer of water will form on the bottom. What will happen if left too long, “aged’ too long? : The top half of the brick will become dry, and split into big hard dried clumps! Such a state means it is unable to be used to make pots. It is in a poor state, and it is beyond unworkable. Clay such as this, being left too long unused, become sub-optimal, and of poorer grade. And in order to use such a brick again, it has to be unwrapped and subject to re-moisturisation together with another process of churning again. At such state, this becomes a “new” brick again. The clock starts again. The optimum and golden period whereby a clay is “ripe” if one were to call it, is between two to five years.
No such thing as “supreme clay aged for forty years”. It is not supreme nor higher quality. It is just unused.
Grand Master He Dao Hong, Grand Master Cao Ya Lin, Grand Master Shao Shun Sheng, and all the other reputable Grand Masters have never SOLD any pots purported to be crafted from “clay aged for twenty years, thirty years… sixty years”. Such terms give goose pimples to the proper ZiSha fraternity.
ZiSha clay is unlike wine. "Aging" does not make it better.
What matters is how cleanly the ore is being picked and selected.
We value the skills of the ore picker gathered over his or her years of experience mining, separating, gathering and hand-picking ores.
What matters is how cleanly the ore is being picked and selected.
AS LONG AS YIXING ZISHA ORE IS PICKED CAREFULLY AND METICULOUSLY, the ZiSha is of TOP GRADE.
In our fraternity, all such meticulously and picked YiXing ZiSha ores, whether it is Qing Shui Ni, Zhong Cao Qing, Di Cao Qing, or the much rarer Yuan Kuang Da Hong Pao, Qing Duan, Ben Shan Lü Ni: All such YiXing ZiSha are EQUALLY GOOD in our eyes and in our regard here in our fraternity.
There is no such thing as one type of YiXing ZiSha is better than another type of YiXing ZiSha.
All of them are equally good in our eyes :-D
As long as it is meticulously picked YiXing ore that is carefully separated from non-ZiSha elements, it is GREAT YIXING ZISHA :-D !!!
Their prices only differ in terms of rarity and scarcity.
All of them are of EQUAL QUALITY in our regard.
Fully-Handmade ZiSha works,
1. Unique because of its characteristic double-sized pores and unique innate congregration of elements,
2. Its finite-ness makes it a cherished treasure, and it makes up the vital other half of tea culture: Tea + Fully-Handmade ZiSha,
3. The most difficult ceramic clay to craft with: which even a young adult with good eyes and dexterous hands after having enrolled in the 3-year course at the YiXing ZiSha school and a further 3 years of apprenticeship, may not be able to craft successfully a "basic" Xi Shi or Fang Gu.
Hence, be very proud of your Fully-Handmade YiXing ZiSha crafts from the Craftsmen and Artists here with us. Be proud of their crafts on your table, which are the result of years of learning, toil and hard work.
May all our hard-working, honest and blinders-on Craftsmen and Artists continue to maintain their livelihood and beyond, so we may enjoy the best tasting teas.
