《功烈壶》"Gong Lie ~Meritorious Accomplishment~ Hu", 124.8ml, *Ta Xi Ye Shan Hong Zong Zi Ni, by our Craftsman Zhang Huan, Engraving of Verse and Plum Blossoms by Craftsman Mu Shan!~ Congratulations!to Mr B.S.! 0056hrs 2nd June 2026, Münster! Germany🇩🇪!
《功烈壶》"Gong Lie ~Meritorious Accomplishment~ Hu"
功烈 (gōng liè) is a Chinese word meaning meritorious achievements or accomplishments. "功" refers to merit or achievement, while "烈" in Classical Chinese is interchangeable with "业" (yè), meaning a great undertaking or achievement!
This is our great new model, a great classical design that this time our aunt Grand Master Cao Yan Ping mooted!and sketched for Zhu Shu to practise, master and perfect!!! Here specially for all of you RealZiSha dearest buddies and friends! Again ultra-stylish, practical and mid-volume, suitable for two to three pax steepings! Specially crafted in our Cao Family's collection of Tai Xi Ye Shan quarry: Hong Zong Zi Ni! Zhang Huan has mastered it in his previous Ban Yue (~125ml) and Da Bin Ru Yi (~180ml) shapes and now Zhu Shu takes over for this extremely handsome Gong Lie Hu《功烈壶》design! Being a special type of Zi Ni, it thrives in all types of teas once well seasoned in any tea! Try it and be very happy the rest of your tea journey!
SAVOUR THE GONG LIE (Meritorious Accomplishment) HU by diligent and hardworking Craftsman Zhu Shu!
Dearest Friends, here we grandly welcome you to another of our Cao Family's clay: * The Tai Xi Ye Shan Hong Zong Zi Ni 台西野山红棕紫泥 *
Huang Long Shan has several quarries, notable amongst them e.g. 4th Quarry, Tai Xi quarry, Da Shui Tan, Bao Shan.
Next to the Tai Xi quarry, there is another second quarry just adjacent, which we affectionately call Tai Xi Ye Shan "Wild Mountain" kuang 台西野山矿!!!
In Li Hong Yuan and Zhu Ze Wei's books on ZiSha, this documented ore/clay type is recorded down very clearly and succinctly too:
"矿: 含有一定量的白色云母碎片.
烧成后呈紫棕红色调, 胎质颗粒质感较好, 但外观色泽纯度略差。"
MEANING:
The Ore: significant presence of WHITE MICA pieces! After firing, it presents in purplish~brown~red colour tones, the sandiness/graininess is very good, and the appearance highly heterogeneous.
Superb form, mastered by Zhu Shu,
Grand Master Cao Yan Ping with Zhu Shu CHOSE for the ENGRAVING to be done by Craftsman Mu Shan with a great repertoire of engraving savoir-faire and calligraphy skills! We are very happy that Mu Shan continues his great service to all of you friends and we love working with him for many more years to come! Thank you friends for supporting Mu Shan!
This time senior Engraving Craftsman Mu Shan performs excellently again subsequent to the sketch and then painting upon by Cao Yan Ping, the Plum Blossoms and with the calligraphed Verse opposite,
"疑是经春雪未销。"
From Poet Lin Bu's "Two Poems on Plum Blossoms in a Mountain Garden" (Song Dynasty):
Translation: Sparse shadows, lying obliquely in the shallow water; a delicate fragrance floats in the twilight moonlight.
~ The sparse plum blossoms cast their oblique shadows on the water.
~ The delicate fragrance of the plum blossoms wafts in the air.
~ Twilight refers to the hazy moonlight, corresponding to "shallow water" in the previous line, creating a double meaning.
From "Early Plum Blossoms" by Zhang Wei, a poet of the Tang Dynasty.
This poem is a masterpiece of Tang Dynasty descriptive poetry, depicting white plum blossoms blooming by the water in early spring:
The poet saw a plum tree in the distance, blooming early in the cold, its branches as white as jade. Because it grew near a stream and bridge, it blossomed earlier than plum blossoms elsewhere. The pure white flowers caught the eye, making one mistake them for snow that had not yet melted after a long, harsh winter. The poet cleverly used the resemblance between "flower" and "snow" to highlight the plum blossom's purity and unyielding spirit.
Engraving of the Plum Blossoms painted, depicted and engraved subsequently, lovingly faces the Tea Master User (Right-Handed),
Shrinkage of Fully-Handmade ZiSha works:
Manually hand-pushed-in hemispherical filter with 1+2+3+2+1 holes, to trap tea leaves below during tilt and pour, and ensuring high flow of tea water out from above! 
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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