Porosity of modern vs pre-60s Yixing

[ChinesePottery]

My comment on Dragon kiln is based on Han Qi Lou's Dictionary of Yixing teapot, 94 page. "Ming dynasty's dragon kiln is still preserved, and still being used". Han Qi Lou is vice-president of Yixing Zisha Association. He's praised with Gu Jing Zhou, for volumizing Yixing teapot as of now.

Time's not like old day, someone like Deng Shi Hai won't dare to publish book full of myth, as knowledge expended and unity strangthened. You said about distance, what distance are you talking about? Telling mine location, sorting samples of clay needs a distance? Telling dragon kiln is still being used needs a distance?

Hi chrl42,

I was under the impression the old dragon kiln is not used anymore and not long ago I even blogged about it here http://teaandpottery.wordpress.com/2011 ... agon-kiln/, but now reading this post of yours I wonder if I might have been mistaken. I asked around a little, and only one phone call away I found out that it seems someone fixed it(or part thereof) up a while back. I live between Yixing and Dingshan and its just around the corner really.... so I shall go visit there soonish and report back here with my first hand findings.

Cheers
Nico

[ChinesePottery]

Alright, I'm back with my findings about Yixing Dragon Kilns as promised in the last post.

I'm sure dragon kilns are largely out of service, but I'd bet somewhere out there there's one or two in operation.

Well, lets see what we've got. Maybe upfront, I could find 3 Dragon Kilns in Yixing all of which I visited today.

First maybe the kiln i already blogged about, the DragonKiln behind the Jun-Glaze factory. It is still a historic site, and it is still protected. Recently there have been made some efforts to make it accessible to the public and maybe as a touristic site. New stairs have been built alongside the kiln as well as the roof and a fence around it. In the future it might cost a little fee to see it. It has not been fired in recent years. The kiln is hidden behind the factory which is currently being used by Han Xiaohu as his studio and showroom. He was nice enough to let us in and we had some Hong Cha together after-wards.














Another kiln, actually the first I visited today, is the QianShu Dragon Kiln. I underestimated the distance from where i live to the QianShu kiln a little. I had not been there before and had to ask more then 10 times for the way and still missed the little road leading there. There are a few signs on the way, but somehow for the last turn that was omitted. It took me about 1 hour to get there on my bicycle and half an hour for the way back. This kiln, interestingly enough, is indeed operational and has been fired more or less recently. I have been told about one year ago. This is a rare occasion and mostly for cultural purposes and to prove it works. Not really much reason for hope that one could get their hands on a contemporary piece of Yixing pottery that has actually been fired in a Dragon Kiln. Not much of that around.














So, whats left? Backyard Dragon Kilns!
There is a smallish(in length) Dragon Kiln called Zisha LongYao inside ChangLeHong on tongshu road. It is quite roomy inside though, one can even stand upright. Unfortunately that Dragon Kiln is decorative and by the looks of it used for storage of larger pottery items. It is not in active use, although it might work, sorry to get a but fuzzy on the details here, it probably never has had any useful output. It was a bit late by the time we arrived there and didn't have much opportunity to ask. The looks of the surface inside speak for themselves though...
















Well, there you go. Sorry i haven't got any better news for you, but it looks like there is currently no Dragon Kiln in regular use in Yixing, at least that i could find. If you heard differently and have an address please let me know, I'd like to go and have a look.

Maybe there is one more thing to add, reliable information is quite hard to come by. For me at least, asking about stuff just doesn't cut it, i like to go out and see for myself if possible. For example the nice guy who had the key to the QianShu Dragon Kiln and unlocked the padlock to let me in said there is no other dragon kilns in Yixing but the one i was standing at.... I'm not sure what to think about that, but anyways, just go out and check for yourself if you can.

[tingjunkie]

That's some pretty awesome first hand reporting CP!!!

Thanks so much for taking the time to investigate and to report your findings. I'm sure the story is not finished yet!

[Drax]

Wow, that's amazing! Thanks to much for hunting those down. Great pictures and info!

So... out of curiosity... what does that mean for so called "Dragon Kiln" pots like these?

[tingjunkie]

Wow, that's amazing! Thanks to much for hunting those down. Great pictures and info!

So... out of curiosity... what does that mean for so called "Dragon Kiln" pots like these?

It means some enterprising Chinese potters welded three 55 gallon drums together end to end, layed them on the side of a hill, and burnt the hell out of some crappy clay!

[debunix]

Note that the listing for that pot carefully does not say 'dragon kiln fired', only says 'dragon kiln style'. I don't read that as claiming dragon kiln firing, only claiming high-temperature firing to give a more porous result.

[Herb_Master]

Great report, thanks for sharing with us.

I look forward to more reports.

[pokute]

Wow, that's amazing! Thanks to much for hunting those down. Great pictures and info!

So... out of curiosity... what does that mean for so called "Dragon Kiln" pots like these?

It means some enterprising Chinese potters welded three 55 gallon drums together end to end, layed them on the side of a hill, and burnt the hell out of some crappy clay!

Actually, that teapot is rather interesting. It's difficult to come to any real conclusion based on the picture provided, but it is obviously slip-cast, and it appears that the texture was produced by spraying. The apparent dullness of the foot suggests that the outside of the pot is lightly overglazed or, much less likely, that the pot was fired with gas and that a moderate reduction was applied (by partially closing the kiln dampers) late in the firing.

So, in the worst case, the teapot is lowfire, electric fired earthenware with an entirely sprayed on texture and overglaze, and in the best case it is moderately high gas fired with a sprayed on texture and some very light firing effects. There is no reason to assume that this pot is particularly porous. It's hard to be any more specific based on the pictures. I'd say there's a better than 90% chance that it's junk. The style of the pot is pretty bad as well... It looks like a good candidate for Martha Stewart's marketing juggernaut.

I strongly doubt any wood was burned or even that any ash was used as a flux to produce the pot in the picture.

[pokute]

Alright, I'm back with my findings about Yixing Dragon Kilns as promised in the last post.

Great pics! These kilns all appear to have been set up with whatever pots or saggars were lying around to make them look less bleak. Kilns resembling these are still in use in Imbe, Okayama Prefecture, Japan, for the production of Bizen pottery. The Bizen kilns are on level (or nearly level) ground, and use modern brick chimneys to get the draft up for their yearly cone 12 firings. Those of you interested in getting a REALLY fine teapot cheap should troll ebay for Bizen ware. There are some great bargains. Bizen-yaki is NOT porous, and is solid and durable.

[TokyoB]

pokute - have you experimented much with different teas in Bizen pots? If so, any preferences?

[pokute]

pokute - have you experimented much with different teas in Bizen pots? If so, any preferences?

Bizen-yaki is heavy vitreous stoneware. Bizen pots should not retain any character from the tea brewed in them, because they are non-porous. They retain heat well because of their mass. Bizen is relatively unknown outside of Japan in spite of being one of the "Six Ancient Kilns". At the time I visited Imbe, there were no kilns using gas or electricity, they were all wood fired. Probably because of the relative lack of an international market for Bizen-yaki. This is also the reason that fine Bizen ware can be got so cheap on Ebay.

I use a glass pot. I brew by eye, and the way I like my tea would probably not suit many folks here. But if you want to use a fine pot because you think that a fine pot improves the tea, Bizen-yaki is a terrific bargain.

[pokute]

Wow, that's amazing! Thanks to much for hunting those down. Great pictures and info!

So... out of curiosity... what does that mean for so called "Dragon Kiln" pots like these?

Wonders never cease. My daughter bought this pot for $4 in a junk store. It appears to be the type that those teapots are an imitation of. (It's cone 6 stoneware, gas or oil fired, apparently vitreous, and the surface was achieved by scraping to expose the flint particles that were added to the clay body specifically to produce this effect.) It is of very uneven thickness, and appears to have been hand-thrown by a university professor undergoing re-education in Yunnan:

http://www.imbe.net/images/yixing/

[ChinesePottery]

Great report, thanks for sharing with us.

I look forward to more reports.

That's some pretty awesome first hand reporting CP!!!

Thanks so much for taking the time to investigate and to report your findings. I'm sure the story is not finished yet!

Well, I do have one more.

The Wuxi Institute of Arts & Technology does have another Dragon Kiln.
Don't be fooled by the name, it is indeed in Yixing, just belongs to Wuxi for administrative reasons, like Yixing itself too actually.
This dragon kiln is not in active use, just like the other ones i wrote about. It has been built for educational as well as for decorative purposes.
Just the existence of this very dragon kiln, although non-operational, gives reason for hope. It is a copy of the QianShu Dragon Kiln and the knowledge gathered in the process of copying it is in good hands. Some day, one of the students who was involved in the project might decide to give it a go, building one once more for active use.

[chrl42]

Nice report, thanks for great effort concerning dragon kiln.

The one I'm talking about is Ming dynasty Qianshu one, I've heard that one would operate like once in a year, many would be normal ceramics and some Yixing teapots would go too, to make Yaobian (kiln-color-changed) pots, they are not high-quality master Yixngs.

[pokute]

Great report, thanks for sharing with us.

I look forward to more reports.

That's some pretty awesome first hand reporting CP!!!

Thanks so much for taking the time to investigate and to report your findings. I'm sure the story is not finished yet!

Well, I do have one more.

The Wuxi Institute of Arts & Technology does have another Dragon Kiln.

Ay-yi-yi. It's just that sort of fabricated fantasy kiln that gives China a bad name. Some huge brick building must have been demolished, and they decided to try and capitalize on the tea craze by building something that superficially resembles an insanely huge kiln.