Zhou Pan《周盘》, 167.9ml, Hong Jiang Po Ni 红降坡泥, by Craftsman Zhu Shu 朱舒!~Engraving of Bamboos and Verse by Craftsman Mu Shan 牧山 ~ Congratulations to Mr B.H.S.! 1146hrs 7th Oct 2025, Jakarta! Indonesia🇮🇩!
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!
"历冰霜, 不变好风, 姿温如玉"
~ 陆容
Ming Dynasty. These famous two verses are the stylish end verses in Lu Rong's writing, and they are to describe the strength of bamboos, that despite braving through snow, iciness and winds, the bamboos stand tall and elegantly, and the surface becomes warm and glimmering like jade.
These verses encourage and give strength to us, as we endure the challenges in life, encouraging us that at the end of all the trials and tribulations, what comes through, is a character of strength and brilliance.
At the back of our great team productions, the engraving, here the bamboos, are taken after famous paintings!
Dearest friends, enjoy your tea :-)
《周盘》Zhou Pan ~ Our YiXing ZiSha Classic,
Zhu Shu chose this YiXing Classic together with our Aunt Senior Master Cao and they voted for RED (HONG) JIANG PO NI in this application, to be engraved by Mu Shan, the Engraving Craftsman.
This Zhou Pan has excellent proportions, with an amazingly styled and sculpted handle, which is also extremely ergonomic to hold by virtue of its width, its good mass, angulated surfaces (for better grip) and smoothly chamferred edges! Craftsman Zhu Shu also delights us with the equally amazing spout with four angulations on the upper half, and a rounded aspect on the lower half.
Clear cut shoulder line, with a delicious ever-so-slightly curved three faces (they are not exactly flat!), due to Zhu Shu's very careful crafting and patting of the side slab!
This Zhou Pan work has a VERY wide top opening.
The lid knob is the very cute and delicious stately miniature of the whole pot.
Handle, Body, Lid, Lid Knob and Spout.
Clay.
Engraving.
Artistic direction from the whole team.
Outstanding work and execution by Zhu Shu and Mu Shan at the end!
Mastered perfectly by Zhu Shu. Each taking a week to accomplish from start to finish. Zhu Shu's and Mu Shan's labour of love and heart warming cooperation!
Superbly pleasing to hold and an understated ZiSha classic work on your tea table!
Lu Xue Feng and Cao Lan Fang chose it to be matched with our Cao Family's Hong Jiang Po Ni clay.
Yi-Lei and ian chose the verses for Engraving Craftsman Mu Shan, while Mu Shan 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 Mu Shan 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 Guests,
"历冰霜, 不变好风, 姿温如玉"
~ 陆容
不在池边亭畔种那些寻常花草，只栽了几竿高高的竹子。竹子和一汪流水相互映衬环绕，显得苍翠清寒、洁净碧绿。风吹过时，竹叶声响像仙人身上的玉佩叮咚作响；雨后初晴，竹子像洁净的女子梳洗过一般，更显清丽。虽然还没长成竹林，难以指望凤凰来栖息，却也姑且能驱散俗念。
要问这竹子的高贵渊源，能追溯到《诗经》中咏叹的淇水之滨。探寻它的传承，可见于湘江岸边。它的品性像柏树一样孤傲高洁，如同阿娇值得用金屋珍藏一般可贵。坐在竹荫下从容休憩，暑热烦闷自然消散，心境清净时，仿佛能隐约触到竹子的淡淡清香。即使经历冰霜侵袭，它美好的姿态也不会改变，温润得如同美玉。
Engraved by Craftsman Mu Shan here in Kai Shu 楷书 style.
These two verses are the end verses in Lu Rong's writing, and they are to describe the strength of bamboos, that despite braving through snow, iciness and winds, the bamboos stand tall and elegantly, and the surface becomes warm and glimmering like jade.
These verses encourage and give strength to us, as we endure the challenges in life, encouraging us that at the end of all the trials and tribulations, what comes through, is a character of strength and brilliance.
Dearest friend, enjoy your tea :-)
Pictorial engraving of the sterling bamboos and tree, faces the Tea Master in you,
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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!
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 and also Chen Fa Chu (together both being the longest serving Craftsmen with us). 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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