《平盖莲子》, 180.1ml, *Tai Xi ~ Di Cao Qing 台西底槽青, by Craftsman Zhu Shu 朱舒 , Orchids 兰花 and Poem Engraving by Craftsman Yi Cheng 逸成 ~!Congratulations to Ms C.B.! 1005hrs 19th Apr 2026, League City! TX!
https://www.realzisha.com/pages/fully-handmade-zisha-art-and-craft-and-tea-pairings
《平盖莲子》Ping Gai Lian Zi!
Craftsman Zhu Shu! She delights us this time with this Austere and super classic Ping Gai Lian Zi! This is a piece that has fetched 7,130,000rmb (713万) in our renowned Beijing auction recently in Year 2022. Initial estimated price prior to the auction, is 2,600,000 - 2,800,000rmb. Final price was three times the estimation! The team worked closely and Zhu Shu takes up this task of presenting this Ping Gai Lian Zi superb classic that is so evergreen, to you!!! Craftsman Yi Cheng subsequently took over the finished piece by Zhu Shu to write the poem in Kai Shu style calligraphy and also painted the Shan Shui landscape and engraved the landscape beautifully! Affordable as always too, bring this work crafted in our Cao Family's Tai Xi ~ Di Cao Qing home to make your best teas!
ZiSha Art is the most amazing carrier medium, housing Five aspects of Chinese Cultural Arts!
1. Fully-Handmade ZiSha Art and Craft,
2. Painting,
3. Calligraphy,
4. Poetry,
5. Engraving Art and Craft.
Hold, Use and Keep relishing all five aspects of our Chinese Culture in your daily life, in solitude, in practice, during hospitality to family and friends alike!
Savour the journey, dearest Friends :-D
Craftsman Zhu Shu hereby is entrusted by our Cao Family to tap onto our limited stock of our Tai Xi : Di Cao Qing Zi Ni (as compared to the Lao Zi Ni recently used by Craftsman Yang Pin Ting in the Jian Yi Hu)!
Tai Xi Zi Ni, is the peculiar clay that is mined from the already collapsed and sealed Quarry site, the Tai Xi quarry. The Tai Xi Quarry is also part of several quarries/mine pits where excavation is being carried out. The Quarry Pit is named Tai Xi Kuang 台西矿。It is an extinct clay per se. Whatever is left in our inventory, will never be renewed.
Our Tai Xi Zi Ni, not just being authentic, is sold to true connoisseurs at this affordable price, we never jack up. As we always say, if it ends, it ends, and we will never jack up prices opportunistically due to its impending end of stock. The true practice of tea is to 舍得 "She De", to let go, and we gently ease ourselves with fate 随缘 "Sui Yuan": if the clay ends, it ends, and we will still be happy. What is most important is our friendship, this mission to preserve Fully-Handmade ZiSha Art and Craft. This is never meant to be a commercial exercise. Let us enjoy our tea journey! Previously Craftsman Zhang Huan was entrusted with our Cao Family's Tai Xi Zi Ni in a few of his works, and Craftsman Yang Pin Ting with the Tai Xi Lao Zi Ni too! Dearest Friends, this time, making its appearance and release is our Cao Family's superb quality Tai Xi Di Cao Qing, deliciously reddish brown, great texture, patinas beautifully as well!
Relish our Cao Family's Tai Xi Di Cao Qing, and make this one of your handsome works on your tea table doing tea steeping duties!
Great swift pour and emptying!!! Addictive to handle, pour, settle and use again! Decisive cuts, excellent, elegant Oriental poise. All classy and oriental!
Yi-Lei and ian chose the verses for Engraving Craftsman Yi Cheng, while Yi Cheng exercises his own artistic direction for the delicate pictorial engraving of bamboos.
We wish all our dearest friends in you, to enjoy it, use it, savour it and feel the aura of our Chinese YiXing Art.
Let us cheer Zhu Shu and Yi Cheng together on their excellent and beautiful collaborative work! A piece that has gone through many stages from the start, the ideation, detailed design and measurements, clay preparation, diligent practice and the final work which is presented for you!
Assuming the user is right-handed,
Calligraphy faces the Tea Master,
Craftsman Yi Cheng crafts the famous stanza from Famous Poet Zheng Yu:
”长风破浪会有时 直挂云帆济沧海“
出自唐代郑愚的《茶诗》
《茶诗》是一首五言律诗。诗的首联直接点出茶芽香气扑鼻、灵性十足，被诗人视为草本中的佼佼者；颔联描写烹茶的过程；颈联形象描写诗人在烹茶过程中的心态；尾联点出茶汤令人提神醒脑、摆脱困乏的功效。这首诗反复涵咏，淡而有味，表达出诗人对茶的赞美和赏爱之情。This poem, "Tea Poem," is from Zheng Yu's poem of the Tang Dynasty. It is a five-character regulated verse. The first couplet directly points out the fragrant aroma and vibrant spirit of tea buds, which the poet considers the best among herbs. The second couplet describes the process of brewing tea; the third couplet vividly portrays the poet's state of mind during the process; and the final couplet highlights the refreshing and invigorating effects of tea. This poem, when repeatedly contemplated, is subtle yet flavorful, expressing the poet's praise and appreciation for tea.
Dearest friends, enjoy your tea :-)
Pictorial engraving of the Orchids, beautifully facing the Guests!
Gratitude to Craftsman Yi Cheng 逸成。
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GRAND NEWS! Craftsman Zhu Shu has joined us! Craftsman Yi Xiao Ran, together with Senior Master Cao Lan Fang and Senior Master Lu Xue Feng talked to her and another lady Craftsman Yang Pin Ting, in June of 2025, and convinced both of them to join us! Zhu Shu is a very skilful Craftsman whom we have observed and scrutinised, and hence join hand in hand to be great professional Artisans with Craftsman Zhang Huan to share our studio in working on delightful ZiSha Artworks for ALL OF YOU Dearest Friends!!! Our Cao Family is delighted to have Zhu Shu, a very hardworking, young lady Craftsman to be together in this happy team here in YiXing besides the River Li 蠡河 at Shu Shan 蜀山!
Craftsman Zhu Shu 朱舒 has taken a strong affinity to Fully-Handmade ZiSha Art, and has dedicated herself to crafting small volumes, excellent works for YiXing Association and events. We decided to support her and convinced her to join us at RealZiSha, as we all insist on only ZiSha works of HIGH QUALITY. Hand-picked by Senior Cao Lan Fang and Senior Master Lu Xue Feng over observation of the past decade as she works alone, and oft times challenged in her livelihood, and they have also taken her in as their very hardworking disciple and our CORE COLLEAGUE. She will be featuring delightful works regularly together with Zhang Huan and Yang Pin Ting!
Craftsman Zhu Shu is NOW proudly one of us and she will be featuring consistently, and she also works closely with Yi Xiao Ran (featured in our home page video), Zhang Huan, Yang Pin Ting, Gu Xiao Ming and also Chen Fa Chu (together both being the longest serving Craftsmen with us) mastering the Zi Ni and Duan Ni clays. Craftsman Zhu Shu is extremely diligent and talented at the same time, and very focussed now in producing her best work for you friends! Her lines and detailing speak of her EXTREME CARE AND TIME taken to craft each part, each pot.
Only a very well-trained, experienced and skilful Craftsman will be able to understand the curves and proportions perfectly, and here beautifully captured and crafted by Craftsman Zhu Shu.
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Again, another tremendous labor of love by our trusted and committed collaborative Craftsman Zhang Huan. It is a team effort and we thank you dearest Friends for your grandest support to the honest and the dedicated Craftsladies and Craftsmen here left to fend the Fully-Handmade ZiSha Art.
Hold one, hold up one, swing his work around. Carefully examine his Fully-Handmade work. Look at it from afar, from near, and it will grow on you. The whole piece grow on you because 1) he takes reference from what the Senior Masters chose for him, 2) and he amazingly crafts them up EXACTLY as to what the Senior Masters want from him: extreme 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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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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Our Senior Masters have given Craftsman Zhu Shu the full blessings with all of us. She is fully-fledged at RealZiSha. Most important, after all the hard work our team have put in collectively,
We are very happy that she is now with all of you.
Presenting Zhu Shu and her hard-worked and fine-worked Pieces for you. One by one.
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