Xiao Qie Gua 小茄瓜, 141.9ml, Xiao Mei Yao Zhu Ni 小煤窑朱泥, by our Collaborative Craftsman Zhai Yi Yao 翟一耀。

Skilful Craftsman Zhai Yi Yao 翟一耀 has officially joined up with Craftsman Wang Xing and us taking care of all the Zhu Ni Zi Sha Works from June 2024 onwards!  He starts off with both his Xi Shi and Li XIng for us.  Zhai Yi Yao and Wang Xing are former course mates for three years at the ZiSha school.    He is one with us, working alongside his long time friend Craftsman Wang Xing.

We must take our hats off to Craftsman Zhai Yi Yao!
1.   Being of a small ~110ml volume, he manages to work within such small confines to still accomplish with aplomb, this beautifully crafted shape and silhouette!
2.   The adorable-ness is elevated as Zhai crafts this Xiao Qie Gua as Craftsman Zhai, takes the LONG WAY OUT to craft in the very delectable:
纳底, Na Di base!  Na Di base crafting and sculpting involves carefully coaxing the ZiSha clay step by step, and patiently pressing and pressing into shape, the concaved-in structure.   "Na Di" 纳底 , the "pushed in", coaxed in, pressed-in concave base.  Delectable.
4.  Craftsman Zhai 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.

In the utilisation of Che Yi Dao cutter, the worker will just need to 1) roughly pound the slab into a slightly thicker slab. After that the worker rounds up this slab as part of the main body, and will just 2)need to ROUGHLY paddle-pat it into shape. After which he sets up the Che Yi Dao cutter to revolve and cut the body into a perfect shape.