【Name:】Xi Shi   Teapot
【Clay Type:】Gold Zhu Ni , Zhu Mud, Zhu Clay
【Capacity:】   180ml
【Size: 】L:11cm w:7cm h:7cm
The “Xi Shi Pot” is Chinese also known as “Xi Shi Ru” or “Dao Ba Xi Shi”. The inspiration comes from a laundry girl in Yue state during the spring and autumn and warring states period. She was born with a natural beauty. Charming and attractive as she is, her one smile makes a man fall for her, and her another smile makes a whole kingdom fall for her.

A master craftsman in his forties has been making pot for more than twenty years. During the time he basically only makes one pot, which is the “Xi Shi pot”! The man does not have a title, nor does he hope to gain one to prove himself. He just enjoys making pot.

180 ml is gold standard size. If the capacity is smaller than this, the space inside the pot will be too limited for tea to be fully brewed and release its scent. If the capacity is too big, the space inside will make it difficult to gather the scent of the tea.

The more pure iron ingredients and corrugations, the more beauty and contractibility of the pots. That’s the main reason why the real Zhu mud pot is difficult to make and many finished products have defects.

The chemical pot businessman will say, not all Zhu mud have corrugations, the real reason is that they don’t have the real Zhu mud. They put somethings like ironoxidered and manganese oxide in the basic processes of ordinary pottery clay. Then it has more heavy metal components and so there are no corrugations.

What benefits can corrugations bring to tea-making? In fact, in process of making tea Zhu mud pot will expand when it is swashed by boiled water and the corrugations, which plays an elastic role in preventing the pot from exploding, will open and close just like accordions.

Gold red mud is also called Zhaozhuang red mud. It’s made in Zhaozhuang (it’s about 1500 meters from Zisha village)
They can highlight their extraordinary value without any seal-mark but after being old and decayed and made by manual techniques especially after they are undergoing in the cave dwelling.
It’s always the most popular tea ware among tawny man through the history.
After firing, tire color scarlet bold again after bubble raise, it is more glorious moist, with the hand up, there will be a clear sense of particles (Other pug is no such feeling).

They begin to show fetal color after being burned, especially present lustrous after soaked. If you touch it, you will feel the graininess clearly (not in the other clay materials).

Under the sunshine, you will see it red and slightly yellow.

Zhaozhuang zhu mud is the ultimate. We used to visit the material workers and came to know Zhaozhuang could produce in one year based on the past preparation of pot amount(2-300 per month).

We know well the value of Zhaozhuang Zhu mud. Long times ago, they hoarded and collected a crop of rare gold red mud under hard situations. So the amount was limited.
From the picture, the mud is exquisite and it has less impurity, so its plasticity is much better than other Zisha’s.
The soul art of teapot is found when it’s at the highest temperature through burning or it’s about 10 centigrade between the heat and the firm glass.

Gold red mud is suitable for all kinds of tea. The contraction percentage appears as crystal. This makes the thermal insulation and heat storage better. Under this situation the heat will make inside the closed cycle. It gives more convey reaction.The tea will have a better pleasant smell with fragrant aftertaste. Tea infusion is penetrating with a slight sweet in taste. The main reason why we choose Xishi design is because the pot is a regular circle in shape ,and tea can be fairly and fully brewed. If the tea is made in this way, it carries a delicate ,distinctive and sweet taste.

The rocks are near zhaozhuang and hongwei. The picture of exploitation is just a local profile without red mud bottom tender. We can’t see distributron status underpart of soft clay.
The real Jinzhu mud is precious. It’s only about 5to 10 meters thickness in strata of more than 5000 meters. Jinzhu mud is as beautiful as gold, besides, it is incredibly pure which is incomparable for other kind of pug. The finished products pot has an age texture with a pleasant vermilion which is getting archaic over times, and it is indeed the most valuable clay on the edge of extinction.                                    –pictures from book Yixing Zhusha Mineral Materials, Geology Press, 2009

In this shoot taken in Zhaozhuang in 1998, we uncovered the ore Zhuni sleeping deep in the mountain, which is only showed in the yellow part. However, the mountain has dissolved in the river of time.
The shopkeeper escort the truck in person: dozen of trucks loaded the Zhaozhuang ore Zhuni to warehouses with dozens of tons a drive. How cheap the mud was at that time!
All the truck was loaded with golden mud from Zhaozhuang and it was in high purity. But at that time, people took hoarding pug as a business of stupidity.