Hua Ting 华庭, 214.9ml (complex, large: 14cm long, 10cm wide), Xiao Mei Yao Zhu Ni 小煤窑朱泥, by Craftsman Chen Yue Fei 陈跃飞, Engraving by Craftsman Yi De Shu 一德书 ~!Congratulations to Mr L.C.! 2158hrs 28th Nov 2025, Taylors! SC!

Craftsman Yi De Shu crafts the 2 stanzas from Famous Li Bai:
”大鹏一日同风起， 扶摇直上九万里。“
This two verses are hugely inspirational, and gives us strength to believe in, that by exerting oneself and working supremely hard, will definitely prime oneself for greatness and success.  And once you fly, you will soar high and far.

Believe in yourself, work hard, and one day your formidable wings trained for many years, will open and you will fly high and strong.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THIS IS A VERY IMPRESSIVE LARGE XIAO MEI YAO ZHU NI WORK.
Craftsman Chen Yue Fei goes from strength to strength, and we tasked him to craft this very challenging complex and huge work from Xiao Mei Yao Zhu Ni.  He performed very well, and able to steadily craft and fire, as they come through, one out of two, successful.  We are very thankful to him!!!
Let us cheer Craftsman Chen Yue Fei!!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THIS IS A VERY IMPRESSIVE LARGE XIAO MEI YAO ZHU NI WORK.
Craftsman Chen Yue Fei goes from strength to strength, and we tasked him to craft this very challenging complex and huge work from Xiao Mei Yao Zhu Ni.  He performed very well, and able to steadily craft and fire, as they come through, one out of two, successful.  We are very thankful to him!!!
Let us cheer Craftsman Chen Yue Fei!!!

Hua Ting means Chinese Imperial Court.  Combining our Chinese Oriental ancient aesthetic forms, Chen Yue Fei crafted this impressively Oriental, Graceful yet with an edgy and Stately aura reminiscent of the ancient imperial court of yore.
It measures an astounding 14cm long, from tip of the spout to the handle, and the girth of the round body is an impressive 10cm!  Drink Tea with an extra dose of our ancient Chinese ambience and mood, serving two friends together with you the Tea Master!  Or when you just want to drink two times more than your partner after dinner :-D.  Thank you for supporting Craftsman Chen for his TREMENDOUS efforts.  Affordable luxury.

It sports:
1) the impressive Jie Gai 截盖 lid-to-body interface, 





2) expansive and demanding-to-form handle,



3) and  the MOST IMPRESSIVE of all goes to:
The ACUTELY narrowed neck above the shoulder line!  This is very testing to any Artist or Craftsman.  We have taken the photos of the inner walls, and Craftsman Chen is very happy to share with you the detailed photos of the upper aspects of the inner side walls!: with the folding, creasing vertical shrinkage lines.  Because of the SEVERELY narrowed upper part of the body, the radius of the top circular part is a whopping TWO CENTIMETERS smaller and away from the lower circular wide body part where the calligraphy characters are engraved by Craftsman Yi De Shu.




This is much more than that of the De Zhong, and is extremely difficult to coax and paddle-pat from a standard regular clay slab.  This is the power of Fully-Handmade ZiSha, testament to the severe sacrifice of these Fully-Handmaking Craftsman and Artists, taking many years to perfect each of the two hundred over steps of a Fully-Handmaking work.  Not resorting to moulds and half-handmaking.  These dedicated Fully-Handmaking Craftsmen sacrifice their whole lives to commit to this Art and Craft.  They will tell you, they will never negotiate.  Fully-Handmaking ZiSha works is worth their sacrifice of their entire lifetime, they want to preserve our Chinese traditional art and craft.  They want to preserve and enhance the unique character of Yixing ZiSha: the double-sized pores uniquely gifting ZiSha its character.
You see this here:



Our RealZiSha Craftsman and Artists, believe every Fully-Handmade ZiSha work, presents a different form of Oriental charm and, every different ZiSha Teapot Artwork, engages and requires a different form of grace, 禅 and operation from the user during use; They all direct the practitioner, towards a common endpoint; We, when we sit down in YiXing and chat about amongst all our Artists and Craftsmen, from Lu Xue Feng to Zhang Xue Lei, from Zhang Ke to Shao Shun Sheng, from Chen Fa Chu to Yuan Hui, all strongly believe that.

Chen Yue Fei's skills are top notch and he is who we want to work with.
We wanted very much to work with him.  Our scouting with Craftslady Yi Xiao Ran around in YiXing is relentless.  And Chen Yue Fei likes what we are accomplishing here at RealZiSha, and we are also grateful that we are now in a team and the perfect fit for all: dearest patrons in you, and him.  We want the best for all of you!

~~~~~~~~
Many of us delight in a small Xiao Mei Yao Zhu Ni work to steep our Oolong Dancongs, Oolong Da Hong Paos, Wu Yi Yan Chas, Black Teas, with dense rich taste.  A 100degC steep in of hot water, with a fast pour out.  Especially your costliest Oolong, that $4,000 per 100g Oolong harvested around the Mu Shu Da Hong Pao trees meant for the leadership of China.  We want to get the Rich TASTE OUT from the leaves OPTIMALLY, and not burning nor scalding the leaves, with a fast pour out.  A classic fast move.  Elegant and the Oolong that results, especially if that is your costliest Oolong, your costliest Yan Cha in your collection.  Nothing else replaces this prerequisite for the BEST resultant tea taste.  For one or two pax most astounding results.  We want the maximum amount of tea leaves within the pot, that 100degC hot water in that fills up fast and conveniently, decisive pick of the lid knob and covering it, quick and most effective steep, that dense tea water out.  The most treasured steep of 85ml (125ml - 40ml of space taken up by the expanded tea leaves) of tea water out for one to two persons per steep.  When every steep matters.  The most unique and transcendental tasting, that teaches us the matter of impermanence, and we treasure every steep, every drop that passes through down our palate.  For two to three pax, no compromises here as Craftsman Chen crafted this impressive ~210ml for you as well!

An upper end Oolong costs $5 per gram, and 100 grams would cost $500.   Each steep with 7-8grams of tea leaves, this 100grams would last 12 sessions.
We do not waste it, and we want to treasure every drop of tea steeped from it.  

Also notice how he crafted the spout's circumferential clay wall as thin as possible.

You want a quick pour out, you want a small volume pot for that gungfu steeping for your costliest Oolong and Yan Cha, you want a wide lumen and opening for the spout: hence the spout's wall cannot be thick, or else the spout would look unbecomingly stubby, unsightly and oversized to match the pot's body.  The only way to achieve this is to have the Craftsman diligently and crafting a thin yet sturdy wall.  Yes, so as to achieve the widest spout lumen and opening for that fast pour out.  If the clay wall is thicker, you can't have a wide spout opening or else the whole spout would appear too thick and unsightly.

We are thrilled to have Senior Craftsman Chen gift this to all of us.  Though small, it packs astonishing substance in shape, form and execution.  Here presented proudly by Senior Craftsman Chen to all of you dearest friends!

~~~
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!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is Xiao Mei Yao Zhu Ni, as we all know, with the highest shrinkage together with Zhao Zhuang Zhu Ni compared to all other ZiSha types. Failure rates are high. Unpredictability of the clay edges and joints, due to this high shrinkage is scary to say the least.
~~~
TRULY FULLY-HANDMADE AND DELICATELY MADE ZHU NI WORK:
Note on our TRUE Fully-Handmade Zhu Ni pots from RealZiSha: NOT those thick-/irregular-thickness-walled ones which are actually fake "Fully-handmade ZhuNi pots" utilising the cheating new technology: "车一刀 Che Yi Dao": Such ZhuNi pots utilising Che Yi Dao process, have been sprouting up in the market since early 2022. Che Yi Dao involves a swivelling-rotational cutter that goes around a roughly-finished ZhuNi pot to cut the outer surface into a perfect shape. This cutter obliviate the need of accomplished skill of a true Fully-Handmaking Craftsman. Obviously, Che Yi Dao also absolves the need of a skilled FHM Craftsman to 1)pound the slab into a careful thin-slab, 2)paddle-pat the slab into a uniform shape purely manually.