Dearest Friends in our Tea Journey, we welcome Craftsman Chen Hua Jun 陈华军 with us! One great Craftsmen of Fully-Handmade ZiSha Art, we have been wooing him for the past few months, and after seeing our vision of saving Fully-Handmade ZiSha Art, and being the only totally authentic Fully-Handmade ZiSha platform that can realise his identical mission, he joins us! He is working alongside Craftsman Chen Fa Chu, Craftsman Chen Gui Zhi, Craftsman Zhang Huan, Craftsman Gu Xiao Ming, Craftsman Wang Xing, Craftsman Zhai Yi Yao, et al. All totally committed to the cause, and unfazed and unaffected by the luring calls of higher pay and stable pay from the jigger-machining industry bosses.
Chen Hua Jun is very familiar with Jiang Po Ni, both Red and Yellow, and here, he brings forth this gentlemanly Han Wa. Jiang Po Ni is a combination of Hong Ni, Zi Ni and Lü Ni. Huang (Yellow) Jiang Po Ni is amazingly porous and yet inherently contains a fair degree of Hong Ni within, and with a higher percentage of Lü Ni within than Hong (Red) Jiang Po Ni. Huang Jiang Po Ni is one of the most amazing unadulterated ZiSha clay with amazing Patina formation through use. It is very rewarding to use Huang Jiang Po Ni, both for its amazing Patina formation and its excellent pairings with both Sheng and Shu Pu Er.
It sports a ~180ml capacity to help with solo to three pax tea savouring.
Craftsman Chen also conscientiously sculpted a 手推内球孔 Hand-Pushed Spherical Filter to increase the number of filter holes for a solid and fast pour of tea out, working with the largish diameter spout; and with better catching of tea leaves at the bottom fast while allowing tea to flow out from the upper holes.
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The Han Wa 汉瓦.
AND THIS IS A VERY SPECIAL AND TREASURED HAN WA.
We refresh ourselves with the previous explanation on all our Han Wa 's :
In YiXing, there is a saying that,
"Do not brag how good your skills are in crafting Fully-Handmade ZiSha pots,
FIRST SHOW ME your Han Wa.
This saying has its strong foundations.
1.
Han Wa needs to have a gently curving side wall and if not done evenly, is very obvious to the eye.
2.
Han Wa has a largish lid spanning the large circumference. In relativity to the pot's width, the Han Wa obviously has the largest lid-width to body-width ratio! This largish lid also has its front edge VERY CLOSE to where the front spout EMERGES and takes shape. These present a very challenging task to the Craftsman, because:
IF not done well and tight, there will be leaking at the front lid edge when the user tilts the teapot to serve tea. The whole big circular lid has to be 1)perfectly evenly crafted 2)and SURVIVE the variables of shrinkage during firing, to secure a tight fit.
3.
Han Wa's lid, being wide and flat (not high-domed), needs to COPE with the heavy weight of the lig knob pressing down on the lid surface. Despite this relatively heavy lid knob, the lid cannot sag down due to this gravitational push downwards. If not done skillfully, the heavy lid knob that can cause the flat lid to "sink" down in the middle. A domed lid otherwise would naturally present a stronger vertical axial strength to support a heavy lid knob, but not the Han Wa. We therefore must savour and appreciate the gently curving convex lid in this Han Wa on your hands as you handle and use it in your tea practice.
Admire this Han Wa. Simple, and a Top Classic.
Han Wa, is also VERY practical!
4.
It provides extreme ease of introducing tea leaves into the pot,
extreme ease of removing and flushing out tea leaves during cleaning,
extremely fast speed to drying within the pot.
5.
THIS IS THE LATEST IMPROVED HAN WA WITH MANY exit filter HOLES!!! Han Wa also facilitates: during tilting and pouring tea out: allows and draws in more tea and presents a higher hydrostatic pressure that results in a strong jet of tea during serving!!! Coupled with the wide aperture spout>>> the jet is strong and fast! Despite the medium-largish volume here, yes, the tea within pours and empties out into the serving pitcher fast!
Here amazingly, perfectly and astutely made by Craftsman Chen Hua Jun. Thank you for your grandest support to the honest and dedicated Craftsladies and Craftsmen left to fend the Fully-Handmade ZiSha Art.
NOW WE EXPAND FURTHER!
Craftsman Chen Hua Jun is invited and challenged to make this broad Han Wa.
And he succeeded!
We cheer him!!! :-D
On top of the previous 5 points,
This Han Wa is crazy:
6. The lid is EVEN WIDER AND BROADER! That means the lid is even much more prone to collapsing downwards during firing. But Chen Hua Jun succeeded with this! He needs to grasp properly the clay processing, and the moisture needed, and the firing temperatures at all 3 firings perfectly. It took a lot of trial and errors. He succeeded eventually!
Fun Fact. Craftsman Chen succeeded with usually only one out of every four Han Wa made.
We salute his huge efforts to bring this to us.
Skilful Craftsman Chen Hua Jun, now working hard alongside our stalwarts Craftsmen Zhang Huan and Chen Fa Chu! He officially joins us all at RealZiSha from June 2024 onwards. Our happy and hardworking family is united for you friends. Thank you dearest Friends in Tea, for your grandest support to these honest and dedicated Craftsmen left to fend the Fully-Handmade ZiSha Art and Craft.
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Explained, https://www.realzisha.com/blogs/news/actual-zisha-landscape-at-yixing , the Craftsman by selling his hard-worked ZiSha craft 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.
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 critical to their livelihood and the existence of this craft for all of the tea fraternity.
Thank you Friends!
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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 true ZiSha Patina feels and looks like, the Zenith Tea Taste that only Pure and Good Quality ZiSha can give you, and equally important: the Aura exuding from a Fully-Handmade ZiSha Work which others simply can't bring forth, all from the hands of Craftsman Chen Hua Jun's skills. You will know everything then. Enjoy his superb, classic handwork, and let his work accompany you on your tea journey!
Chen Hua Jun THANKS YOU for your earnest support of his work! We are all very happy for Chen Hua Jun to be with us trudging hard on this path, this committed journey together. With you friends, we are altogether fending our common tea culture :-D We move on together!