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Loot from Kyoto
Kyoto is really a lovely town, and is one of my favourite places on the planet. They are filled with tourists, yes, and they live, more or less, off the tourists, but it is because of their charm that...
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Broken to the core
This is a nice pot. Alas, it’s not one I can use. Wudesheng was a yixing workshop that produced pots during the Republican period, and it was shut down after WW2 began. The seal used here probably...
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Patina
There’s something about slowly using a yixing pot, and the accumulation of a patina after extensive use. I bought a group of five shuipings recently at a local shop, and have only been using one. After...
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Essential teaware
Let’s say you need, at a very minimum, a kettle, a pot, and a cup. If we start with the kettle, you need at least something to heat the kettle with, and maybe different kettles for different purposes....
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Ugly, dirty ducklings
Or are they old ducks? I love ugly pots. If you’re generous, you can call them rustic. Less generous souls will call them poorly potted, with bad craftsmanship and bad form. Either way, I love them....
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Packing and moving
This is the sum total of my tea life, at least in terms of stuff. The boxes in the far back are teaware of various sorts. Boxes of tea are here and there, and some have been unpacked already into the...
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An international pot
The potter Petr Novak has been making teaware for a while now, and offering them to us who are interested in something a little different. A while back, I bought a shiboridashi, which is a style of...
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Other people’s seasoning
Many of you have probably read the apocryphal story of an emperor visiting some farmer, was brewed some tea. When asked, the farmer replied that there was no tea, only seasoning from the pot. And...
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Buying tetsubins
Buying tetsubins is a treacherous business. There are all kinds of problems that can arise in the process. I’ve probably bought about a dozen of them now, over the past few years, so have a reasonable...
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Traveling tea set
Having obtained this recently – I’m still trying to make sense of all the parts. So far, identified objects are: chataku (2), dishes (2), metal tea scoop, dry leaves presentation vessel (I think – the...
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What’s in Yixing clay?
So, what’s in Yixing clay anyway? Last year I got in touch with Professor NH Cheung of the Department of Physics of Hong Kong Baptist University, because they have this technique that they have been...
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Zhuni
There’s a lot of discussion, everywhere, of what is zhuni and what is not. It’s quite easy to tell what isn’t, especially if you’ve seen enough of them, but what is, is harder to say. I think I am...
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A small curiosity
Over the years I’ve collected some pretty odd looking teapots. This is one of them I have no idea what this is. The thing is tiny – it measures 8cm from tip of spout to end of handle. It is unglazed,...
View ArticleBuying yixing pots
As somebody with a, er, teapot problem, which has only gotten worse since then, I thought maybe I should summarize what I’ve learned and unlearned through the years. The first thing you learn when you...
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This is how you use a tetsubin
Now if only I had a setup like this. This is a sitting area for guests who are coming in to soak at the onsen and resting up before they leave. The water is kept warm all day long with a slow charcoal...
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Separated by accident
Some friends have been saying I should post more of my pots online. Well, here’s one, or two, rather I’m a real sucker for these pairs with matching pouches, conveniently colour coded so that they are...
View ArticleRaising a yixing pot
How to season teapots? That was one of the comments on my last post. It’s actually not that difficult, although advice on the internet being what they are, and just from the first page of google...
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Gambling in Macau
As many of you know, Macau is now the gambling capital of the world, having taken over Las Vegas for the number one spot a few years ago and now with a very sizable lead. I recently went, but not to...
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Playing with fire
I’ve had this for a couple years now, but I haven’t tried using it until now. Living in an urban environment is not really conducive to using charcoal to boil stuff, especially in a hot place like...
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Yixing inventory #5: “Red clay teapot”, no marks
The Japanese call all red clays “zhuni” but it really just means something red, not the specific type of clay that Chinese call zhuni. This pot is one of the types that I’m a real sucker for – pots...
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