《扁宫灯》"Bian Gong Deng - Palace Lantern (Wide-Girth)", 218.9ml, Di Cao Qing Zi Ni 底槽青紫泥, by Craftsman Gu Xiao Ming 顾小明 ~!🧧Congratulations to Mr M.J.🧧! 0001hrs 24th Feb 2026, Sleepy Hollow! NY!
《扁宫灯》"Bian Gong Deng - Palace Lantern (wide)"!
218.9ml, thicker body-walled: thicker mass, well-weighted at 220grams. 
Largish design at 145 (length) x 96 (width) x 75 (height)
An stunning imperial Palace Lantern design piece fashioned in a wide and broad fashion, and emanating much sleekness and edginess. Craftsman Gu raise the ante with a handsome double-bend spout with a sharp edge, an acutely pert shoulder line with an additionally sculpted stepped motif. Being a large, very broad work, and an almost horizontal shoulder line, the chances of the heavy lid above exerting its gravitational mass and pushing and deforming the body shoulder downwards are great. The stately poise of this beautiful work is also assured with the generously raised circular foot at the base.
Great presence, rather hefty and large with more clay used, occupying much real estate on the tea table, a graceful light double-bend spout and having a wide top opening for ease of introduction of tea leaves as well. An excellent addition to your tea family! We always candidly say this (which is the truth) in YiXing: Tea is much cheaper than ZiSha Art pieces. A $3,000 of 500 grams of Oolong or 357grams Bing Dao can last five to six months if consumed 7 grams every three days.
A Fully-Handmade ZiSha piece to use, keep and display for a lifetime :-D Courtesy of Craftsman Gu Xiao Ming's hard work.
Beautiful stance,
Beauitfully bent and shaped handle with a stepped feature at the top,
Double-bend spout, sharp and confident,
Stepped motif line all round,
Lovely Shrinkage of ZiSha:
Generously thickened, raised and skilfully sculpted: circular foot,
A hand-pushed hemi-spherical filter to increase the number of filter holes for a fast pour of tea out and with better catching of tea leaves below to provide uninterrupted and smooth outflow from above,
Craftsman Gu Xiao Ming 顾小明 welcomes you to use and enjoy this Fully-Handmade ZiSha work for life and thanks you dearest friends for your grandest support.
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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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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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