《道•凌 四方》"Dao•Ling Si Fang ~ Tao•Scale The Summit in Four Directions", 152.2ml,*4th Quarry Bai Ma Zi Zi Ni 四号井白麻子紫泥 by Craftsman Gao Xiang 高翔, EXTENSIVE Body Engraving~Bamboos 竹 by Craftsman Hao Man 浩满。
《道•凌 四方》"Dao•Ling Si Fang ~ Tao•Scale The Summit in Four Directions"
Engraving of the words: "风竹闻茶 ~ Feng Zhu Wen Cha" - "The sound of wind rustling through the bamboos, the aroma of tea" is a poetic imagery, bringing to the Tea Master and Guests, a poetic imagery of the tranquil state of mind one enjoys while appreciating fine tea amidst a verdant bamboo grove!
Bai Ma Zi Zi Ni 白麻子紫泥 is our family's very special clay, and we want you to notice that it is a type of Zi Ni, not Duan Ni (as seen in the Bai Ma Zi Duan Ni).
Bai Ma Zi Zi Ni 白麻子紫泥 is different from Bai Ma Zi Duan Ni 白麻子段泥 (which needs to be fired at 1370degC).
Let us admire this beautifully ingenious work that is this:
《道•凌 四方》"Dao•Ling Si Fang ~ Tao•Scale The Summit in Four Directions"
For this very special work, under the styling auspices of our uncle Cao An Xiang, this work would entail the extensive body engraving, which when lifted up, both the guests and the Tea Master would be able to appreciate, expanding from each side to the other, ACROSS the underside. We chose Craftsman Hao Man 浩满 who is superbly skilled in holding with one hand and engraving with the other hand! Please appreciate Hao Man's magnificent and careful handwork for such BAMBOOS SPRAWLING across different faces, delighting your guests as you lift up the po, tilt and pour tea from it.!
Great special clay, beautiful Polygonal~with~rounding (混方) design, painstaking inception behind the scenes, great handwork and craftsmanship from both Craftsman Gao Xiang and Craftsman Hao Man! Everlasting Artwork for your tea sessions.
ZiSha Art is the most amazing carrier medium, here housing Five aspects of Chinese Cultural Arts, and a beautiful look in to Chinese Painting, Poetry, Calligraphy as well! All five aspects on your hands, plus serving the best teas ever for you on your tea table! Long lasting (lasts beyond a lifetime), easy maintenance, and becomes more beautiful with use and contact, not less!
1. Fully-Handmade ZiSha Art and Craft,
2. Painting,
3. Poetry,
3. Calligraphy,
5. Engraving Art and Craft.
Yes, all these engagement with Chinese Artforms, all while going about your daily and healthy mindful sessions at ease, drinking the best tasting Teas!
We wish all our dearest friends in you, to enjoy it, use it, savour it and feel the aura of our Chinese YiXing Art!
Hao Man's engraving carefully grazes the rear end of the pot, flanking the right side of the handle,
Under the supervision of Cao An Xiang and Zhang Ke, this time, Craftsman Gao Xiang utilises our Cao Family's VERY OWN 4TH QUARRY BAI MA ZI ZI NI, CREATING AND CRAFTING this magnificently sleek work and beautifully ingenious work Tao•Ling Si Fang!
* Dao•Ling Si Fang 《道•凌 四方》*
Fired at 1250degC,
The design hopes to inspire one's pursuit of The Tao of things, and as a personal deed to wish upon Peace in all directions for all sentient beings, as the Tea Master steeps tea.
Bai Ma Zi Zi Ni is our very special clay!!! It is a type of Zi Ni, not Duan Ni, and we fire it to 1250degC just as is eludicated here:
"在矿层中偶然出现, 含矿量极少。
烧成后呈褐紫红色调, 胎质纯正温润, 表面黄白色的砂点颗粒丰富而自然, 色泽浑朴古雅。
It appears rarely and occasionally in mineral layers, extremely low ore content (we need to sieve through it carefully and pick out the required ore!).
After firing, it exhibits a BROWNISH-PURPLISH-REDDISH hue, with a pure and WARM texture. The surface is rich in natural YELLOWISH-WHITE particles, giving it a rustic and elegant appearance."
Our Cao Family's 4th Quarry Bai Ma Zi Zi Ni fired at 1250degC:
Lots of YELLOW-WHITE particles! as described.
Gao Xiang is with you now, crafting beguiling and stunning handy-volumed Polygonal class works for all of you. Him being a very honest friend whom Zhang Huan, Zhu Shu and Yang Ping Ting respect a lot in their clay sculpting trainings several years ago, all of us managed to convince him, to join us in September 2025! And yes here he is for all of you friends! We are all very happy and over the moon!!
Gao Xiang, at age of 31 now, has been particularly fond of small Polygonal class works since fifteen years ago when he picked up and trained hard in Fully-Handmaking works! He receives of course, the nod of quality by Senior Consummate Master Yuan Hui! All of the Craftsmen now in the group too are very happy that from now on, they can all complement one another! Small (100-160ml) Polygonal works are his area of focus and forte, this being is his love which he does best in! We really hope all of you friends and ZiSha aficionados will agree with our team here that his works are amazing in craftsmanship and artistic direction under the auspices of Senior Consummate Master Yuan Hui! All afforded at the most affordable price in the market, and of delicate savoir-faire and workmanship! Very happy that he will now be here permanently with all of you! A lot of hard work from all of us, and we will continue fighting very hard against all odds, for all of you. We love our Fully-Handmade ZiSha Art and are very grateful and over the moon whenever each piece goes to your homes.
We passed to Gao Xiang, our Cao Family’s 4th Quarry Bai Ma Zi Zi Ni that we mined from Huang Long Shan by decades ago. We continue to support and cheer for dear Craftsman Gao Xiang and thank him for his years of dedication to ZiSha and his love of delicate Polygonal works!
Delightfully and extremely carefully crafted: Spout,
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45-degree 1mm-chamfering, A) At the rim of the opening, B) all around the Lid, C)at the handle, and D) at the lower edges of the body:
Lid:
Handle:
Edge of the base:
The carefully, deftly and diligently crafted hand-pushed in filter for amazing great pour from a small-volume ~150ml work!
Shrinkage of Fully-Handmade ZiSha work:
We wish all you, our dearest friends, enjoy it, use it, savour it and feel the aura of our Chinese YiXing Art!
Craftsman Gao Xiang is NOW proudly one of us and he will be featuring consistently, with Zhang Huan, Zhu Shu, Yang Pin Ting, Gu Xiao Ming, Chen Fa Chu, et al. Craftsman Gao Xiang's works are highly scrutinised and praised too!by our Senior Masters, and deemed to be ready for you, delectable for your use and a long lasting permanent ZiSha work in your collection.
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We hope to bring all of you more and more classics, for you to hold a broad view and savour the delightful landscape of ZiSha works that our YiXing fraternity has!!!
A treasure chest and our team will continue to work very hard to prepare and bring forth every single piece to you. Thank you, dearest Friends for your understanding.
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BRING ONE HOME, USE IT and you will know all about Fully-Handmade ZiSha, the feel of real and quality YiXing ZiSha, the nurturing of Patina, how the true Patina feels and looks like, the aura and feel manifested by a Fully-Handmade Pot which others simply can't bring forth. Savour Craftsman 高翔 Gao Xiang's skills. You will know everything then :-D
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Not resorting to moulds and half-handmaking. These dedicated Fully-Handmaking Craftsmen sacrifice their whole lives to commit to this Art and Craft. They will tell you, they will never negotiate. Fully-Handmaking ZiSha works is worth their sacrifice of their entire lifetime, they want to preserve our Chinese traditional art and craft. They want to preserve and enhance the unique character of Yixing ZiSha: the double-sized pores uniquely gifting ZiSha its character.
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Dearest Friends, we are savouring this top Ceramic material for tea, ZiSha, and these are all the Craftsmen’s and Artists’ hard worked, Fully-Handmade pieces, with lots of preparations, intense crafting, heart aches at the kiln, all fully respecting this totally natural, and high shrinkage unpredictable clay, sensitive to even a 0.5degree in ambient temperature, and even weather (temperature, moisture, the four seasons) outside of the kiln. The 铁熔点 ~ natural black iron melted spots that irregularly and spontaneously appear anywhere and everywhere ~ we call Tie Rong Dian :-D, the “跳砂” Tiao Sha denote the observed “popped-off-spots” effect when the cute surface granulate popped off from the surface during the high shrinkage of more pasty clay around it, the “爆子” “Bao Zi” also dot the surface as those that did not pop off, hover out just enough to cling onto the surface, and the simple surface irregularities, are all due to this ceramic clay, although having the highest shrinkage, are still mercilessly and necessarily fired at 1150degC to 1250degC. These are all part of the natural ZiSha artefacts and what many modern day or Western pottery lovers affectionately call “wabi-sabi”. Our Chinese Craftsmen and Artists do not aim for wabi-sabi for the sake of wabi-sabi. Do forgive them for these natural irregularities. These Tie Rong Dian, Tiao Sha and Bao Zi, are the natural phenomena that dot the surface of our beloved top tea ceramic! YiXing ZiSha, the best ZiSha source in the whole world, with the double-sized pores innately inherent and imbuing the best taste for any type of tea. Savour Fully-Handmade ZiSha teapot Craft and Art!
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Here with us in our happy family of true ZiSha connoisseurs, you witness 90-120 photos taken of EACH Fully-Handmade ZiSha work here.
Compare this to elsewhere: factory bosses of jigger-machining non-zisha pots contribute downstream to their retailers: 5-10 stock photos for each non-zisha pot model, used to sell a stock of 10, 20, 30 jigger-machined non-zisha pots per model. I.e. 5-10 photos to sell hundreds of one model.
We at RealZiSha, take 90-120 photos, fresh, of EACH, ONE, Fully-Handmade ZiSha work. Together with our sacrificial and hardworking Craftsmen and Artists committed to honest true Fully-Handmade ZiSha Art and Craft, we at RealZiSha go the eons' distance.
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Here with us in our happy family of true ZiSha connoisseurs and friends, you witness 90-120 photos taken of EACH Fully-Handmade ZiSha work here.
Compare this to elsewhere: factory bosses of jigger-machined non-zisha pots contribute downstream to their retailers: 5-10 stock photos for each non-zisha pot model, used to sell a stock of 10, 20, 30 jigger-machined non-zisha pots per model. I.e. 5-10 photos to sell hundreds of one model.
We at RealZiSha, take 90-120 photos, fresh, of EACH, ONE, Fully-Handmade ZiSha work. Together with our sacrificial and hardworking Craftsmen and Artists committed to honest true Fully-Handmade ZiSha Art and Craft, we at RealZiSha go the aeons' distance.
Again, another tremendous labor of love by our trusted and committed collaborative Craftsman Gao Xiang. It is a team effort and we thank you dearest Friends for your grandest support to the honest and the dedicated Craftsmen here left to fend the Fully-Handmade ZiSha Art.
The lines and detailing speak of Craftsman Gao Xiang's EXTREME CARE AND TIME taken to craft each part, each pot. 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, 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 HOW 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.
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The keywords are: Detailing and Cohesiveness.
A GOOD Fully-Handmade ZiSha Work combines great detailing and cohesiveness.
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The amount of effort put behind each of our Fully-Handmade ZiSha work welcoming you, the authentic YiXing ZiSha clay, the many years of dedication and hardship committed to the craft, the proper three rounds of firing, the presentation with dedicated 80-150 photos of each work, the effort spent behind procuring 5rmb notes in running stacks from our local banks, is 100,000x, more than the what is peddled on countless websites: with cheap common ceramic clays behind the unauthentic pots, the fast, less than a minute of jigger-machining, or just the few months’ ability of newly recruited unskilled workers to churn out half-handmade pots, the simple one to two rounds of firing at convenient and lower temperatures at just only one round of firing, cheap ceramic clays that do not shrink much so as to maximise success and profits, the presentation with a set of ten photos taken per model and repeated for more than tens to thousands of stock.
And yet, Craftsmen Gao Xiang, Fang Shi, Chen Fa Chu, Zhu Shu, Gao Xiang, Fan Xiao Zhi, Zhang Huan, Yang Pin Ting, Gu Xiao Ming, Wang Xing, Wang Hui, etc, honest hardworking people are put in a really bad position, for they 1) have to compete on price with fake stuff from all around, but still 2) have to offer the honest real thing: Fully-Handmade ZiSha works. These honest Craftsmen have to lower their prices so much with their works, authentic works of extreme sacrifices, labour and experience.
Explained, https://www.realzisha.com/blogs/news/actual-zisha-landscape-at-yixing
, the Craftsman by selling his hard-worked ZiSha craft "basic" Austere models like Fang Gu, at $190-$240, $45-$65 goes to the cost of the craft, inclusive of the fees for the firing for the kiln operator (three times per pot), the packaging boxes, and between $32 to $52 for the clay (Zi Ni Di Cao Qing, Duan Ni and upwards) used per pot. Craftsman takes 3 days (fastest 2.5days) to craft a pot.
Depending on the difficulty of craft the design elements command, the difficulty of crafting with certain clay types, the rarity and hence cost of clay, the inclusion of engraving 刻绘 and/or clay sculpting e.g. Ni Hui 泥绘, Dui Hui 堆绘, Diao Su 雕塑 on the piece of work, our Craftsmen face immense cost increase, time spent, and the level of expertise and savoir-faire accumulated by sheer HARD WORK.
If he works 30 days a month without a single day of rest (no family time), he will craft 10-12 pots.
If he crafts for 25 days (five days of rest a month), his output will be 8-10 pots.
The success rate for Zi Ni (e.g. Di Cao Qing, Lao Zi Ni, Da Shui Tan etc) and Duan Ni (e.g. Jiang Po Ni, Qing Hui Duan, etc) is 70% on average. Some times the whole batch of 10 may fail. We have seen our Craftsmen suffer like this very often.
The success rate for Zhu Ni (e.g. Xiao Mei Yao Zhu Ni) pots is 60%, or 70% with most optimism and at the very, very best. Unfortunately.
All of us at RealZiSha of course, hope for one another, professional colleagues and all, that all the pots will survive firing at the kiln successfully.
[For ZiSha models/designs that are very challenging and more complicated to craft, the time taken to craft will be longer, and the failure rate will be higher as well. Zi Sha by its virtue, have the highest shrinkage rate of all ceramic clay. Zi Ni and Duan Ni thus have that 70% success rate, while Zhu Ni has even higher shrinkage rate and thus even lower success rate (the lowest of all ceramic clay.)]
Our Craftsmen are wholeheartedly committed to the cause of Fully-Handmade ZiSha Art and their strictness with their craft and dedication earn our respect. We give a big Thank You all of these Craftsmen, for they are saving what is our common precious tea culture: Tea + Fully-Handmade ZiSha Art and Craft. Your support is vital to their livelihood and the existence of this craft for all of the tea fraternity.
Thank you Friends!
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