《大彬如意》Da Bin Ru Yi!
Zhang Huan is now back with his Da Bin Ru Yi, this time, with our Cao Family's delectable Qing Hui Duan clay!used by Premier Master Cao An Xiang in his religious pieces! Here totally entrusted to Zhang Huan. Dearest Friends, relish our Cao Family's Qing Hui Duan, and here in one of the best Classic Shapes by legendary Shi Da Bin!
A Da Bin Ru Yi is instantly recognisable by its supremely Oriental aura, delightful feet, and graceful yet stately stance.
Always a strong jet pour, decisive cuts, excellent, elegant Oriental poise.
Enjoy your Da Bin Ru Yi, this time in our Cao Family's Qing Hui Duan!!



Zhang Huan aces all aspects of this Da Bin Ru Yi, and we entrusted him with this model. He had previously crafted it in Di Cao Qing, and here, in our Cao Family's Qing Hui Duan to enliven your Da Bin Ru Yi collection!




The spout, a delightful Swan neck, confident, a quick kink upwards, and then confidently rising upwards and forwards with a handsome forward end! All tastefully crafted by Zhang Huan:


The lid knob is surrounded by, yes the quintessential Auspicious sign for us Chinese: the Ru Yi Wen 如意纹。




Zhang Huan bends the handle to perfection, and BLENDS it in to join the body with extreme finesse:
- bottom part, with an ever so slightly flaring outwards, to meet the body,
- top part, with the carefully sculpted motif, all neat and smart.




One of the most difficult part, is here, around the base, where Zhang Huan needs to pat and blend both the side wall slab, to meld naturally with a CONTINUOUS smooth, rounded silhouette, with the concaved base slab.





Your new tea drinking friends will immediately take note of Shi Da Bin's ingenuity: the baby's feet, all so distinct and rcognisable. Great relief Art as one picks up the pot and tilts it sideways. Never an easy work to craft each foot to perfection (as close as possible), site each on the base, and do the refining work on the surface to make each of these organically curved feet looking smooth and detailed.
Amazing work by Zhang Huan again!




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Senior Masters Lu Xu Feng and Cao Lan Fang, chose for Zhang Huan this time:
This《大彬如意》Da Bin Ru Yi,
to be matched with our Cao Family's Qing Hui Duan 青灰段 clay!!!
~~~ Specially chosen for all of you friends!
This is the EXACT SAME Qing Hui Duan clay 青灰段 that our uncle:
ZiSha Religious Art PRIME MASTER CAO AN XIANG 曹安祥, uses in many, many of his works for the temples!










Qing Hui Duan is a type of Duan Ni, and is excellent for Sheng Pu Er 生普洱 and Shu Pu Er 熟普洱。
Qing Hui Duan is carefully chosen within our team for all of you, accounting for 1) the ZiSha model chosen, 2) the set volume for the top overall aura to be achieved.
We hope dearest friends in you, will love it and use them in your daily lives.
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Craftsman Zhang Huan 张欢, since young, has embarked on his journey of crafting Austere ZiSha works of HIGH QUALITY. He had been noticed and hand-picked by Senior Cao Lan Fang and Senior Master Lu Xue Feng over observation of the past decade, and they have taken him in as their very hardworking disciple and CORE COLLEAGUE.
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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.
Zhang Huan works with Senior Master Cao Lan Fang in her studio and all works are AMAZING high performance and high value. Take one home fast and savour his formidable, archetypically ZiSha classic craft and let his work accompany you on your tea journey!
Craftsman Zhang thanks you for your kindest support of his Work and adopting his work on your tea table while you steep teas for yourself and your family and Friends! Thank you!
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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 Zhang Huan the full blessings with all of us. He is fully-fledged at RealZiSha. Most important, after all the hard work,
We are very happy that he is now with all of you.
Presenting Zhang Huan and his hard-worked and fine-worked Pieces for you. One by one.
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Also to be cherished and witnessed in this ZiSha Work, you : besides the usual important, critical and beautiful hallmarks of a Fully-Handmade ZiSha pot, this pot has the discontinuous and roughly horizontal marks evident on the inner walls, and these are called the: 泥凳纹 Ni Deng Wen, which are the marks left on the clay slab, complementary to the marks on the workbench of the Craftsman Zhang Huan; During the making of FHM ZiSha pots, the Craftsladies and Craftsmen will be using tools to cut the clay slabs, etc, and these cutting strokes will leave marks on the studio workbench. Especially the first major forceful cut across the table to delineate the clay she/he wants to utilize to form the main body of the body. Thus when the craftsman subsequently pound the clay slab on the workbench, these marks will be etched onto the clay slab. Thus you are "enjoying" the additional natural hallmarks of a Fully-Handmade pot. Even a partially handmade pot will not show these marks. And those fake, those Jigger-machined pots may show CONCENTRIC continuous circular lines, usually all parallel to one another, and extremely uniform.
Take note that these Ni Deng Wen lines are CONVEX AND PROTRUDING OUTWARDS from the flat clay slab wall, not marked inwards. They protrude *out* due to them being complementary to the worn and cut *in* lines on the wooden bench the Craftsman is working on.
Therefore, do cherish and have fun admiring the discontinuous, roughly horizontal lines on your pot's inner walls, are called, the 泥凳纹 Ni Deng Wen "Workbench Lines/Marks".
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