Gao Xiu Hu《高秀壶》, 182.9ml, Bao Shan Duan Ni 宝山段泥, by Craftsman Zhu Shu 朱舒 ~ With Engraving of Bamboos and Verse in Zhuan Shu 篆书 by Craftsman Yi Cheng 逸成!~ Congratulations!to Ms E.A.! 0009hrs 28th Nov 2025, Vineland! NJ!
《高秀壶》Gao Xiu Hu!
Craftsman Zhu Shu! She delights us this time with this tall, organic and svelte Gao Xiu Hu full of Oriental flavour! We worked very closely with her, and sat down together with Craftsman Yi Cheng to bring this resplendent Gao Xiu Hu to you. Yi Cheng provides both calligraphy and pictorial engravings!
ZiSha Art combines five aspects:
1. Fully-Handmade ZiSha Art and Craft,
2. Painting,
3. Calligraphy writing,
4. Poetry,
5. Engraving Art and Craft.
Hold, Use and Keep relishing all five aspects of our Chinese Culture in your daily life of solitude, practice, hospitality to family and friends alike.
Enjoy, the journey, dearest Friends :-D
Here, Our Cao Family supplies THAT delightful, extinct Bao Shan Duan Ni from our precious Cao Family's stock.
Bao Shan Duan Ni is a ZiSha ore that was excavated more than two decades ago. Its historical mining site has closed more than twenty years, and now a traffic passing and a bridge is constructed over it. Its historical location is between the 2nd Mine and the 4th Mine in the past. We can also bring you to its actual site during our Hospitality Tour!conducted yearly :-D
Bao Shan Duan Ni has an amazing bronze rustic hue, with amazing depth when viewed close, and also with stupendous steeping and seasoning effects with patina formation!
We entrusted this superb Gao Xiu Hu to Zhu Shu, and she rose to the occasion!!!
Relish our Cao Family's Bao Shan Duan Hui Duan, and make this one of your handsome works on your tea table doing tea steeping duties!
Surprising great pour, addictive to use!, decisive cuts, excellent, elegant Oriental poise.
Enjoy your Gao Xiu Hu in our Cao Family's Bao Shan Duan!!
This is a very excellent shape mastered by Zhu Shu!
With the Jie Gai! and the difficulty of crafting the whole in a totally organic cohesive sillhouette!
Zhu Shu masterfully and diligently crafted the delicious Lid Knob (so easy to pick up!), and equalled it and mirroring the form with the distinct, decisive flared base!
The base is beautifully and confidently acutely flared outwards but superbly rounded off at its edges by Zhu Shu! Extremely well-weighted and flared base enabling you to land it securely and comfortably! Kudos, Zhu Shu! An absolute delight!
Zhu Shu also stresses the cohesion horizontally wise as well:
~ the Spout,
~ the Handle (generous opening, easy to pick up again!),
Both of beguiling form, alluring and charming!
Thank you very much Zhu Shu!
We admire Zhu Shu's concentration, tenacity and care at giving us this magnificent Gao Xiu Hu!
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,
"入水文光动 抽空绿影春。”
出自唐代李贺的《竹》
诗人用竹子的意象，描绘了光线与水面的互动以及春日里竹叶映水的景象，让人仿佛置身于春意盎然的景致之中。
Engraved by Craftsman Yi Cheng 逸成, here in Zhuan Shu 篆书 style.
Written by Famous Poet 李贺。
Superbly transformative, upon the reader's mood, upon reading.
The water's surface shimmers with light, and the verdant shadows of spring are drawn away.
The poet describes the interaction between light and water, as well as the scene of bamboo leaves reflected in the water in spring, making the viewer feel as if they are in a vibrant spring landscape.
Dearest friends, enjoy your tea :-)
Pictorial engraving of the sterling bamboos and tree, faces the Guests,
Gratitude to Craftsman Yi Cheng 逸成。
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GRAND NEWS! Craftsman Zhu Shu joins 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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