Why is Yixing the best clay?

[Pouvla]

Having just read marshal's blog about logic, this got me started (albeit in abit different direction).

We all rave about yixing pots and the different sorts of clay their made of.
We know that they're pourouse (spelling?) and retain the heat really well etc etc.

But have there been testing wif making tea pots out of other types of clay from other parts of the world? I find it quite amazing that the most tea loving ppl actually also have the best clay in the world for the pots.

For some reason, it seems abit naive to just accept yixing clay is the nr1 without having heard a word about its rivals (which apparently there is none)

[yee]

There is a possibility that suitable clay can be found in other parts of the world. BUT: it is much cheaper to produse this kind of teaware in china; they already have their "knowhow" so why bother to train people somewhere else; Yixing teapots are BUSINESS and then everything else... so i guess this people do everything to protect their business... and so on, and so forth. Even if there is someone making teapots elsewhere(indeed dhey make a lot of nice clay teapots in taiwan, and their artists are as good as ones from Yixing) tealowers who believe in magic will always care a lot if their lovable pots come exactly from Yixing area. And i persomaly dont have any problems with it.

[Oni]

Yixing clay is not clay nor a mud, it is translated as purple sand, it is a rock mined from deep and ground into a powder and mixed with water and fermented, is is like bean paste, and the technology from yixing was brought to tokoname around the 12th century, where similar "clay" is mined, and mumyoi yaki is similar and banko yaki purple clay is similar to yixing, so they do not hold monopoly over the market, instead they have the tradition and the luck to have great raw material, yixing was a pottery region since before Christ, it has long history and tradition, you cannot reproduce that in another region so easely, and the teapots are made with tea in mind, so that is why a region is prefered for each tea drinking custom to produce the right teaware, banko and tokoname for sencha, and gyokuro, yixing for oolong and puerh.

[yee]

Similar kind of clay can be found almost al over the world. The only thing that makes Yixing clay unique is higher amount of caolin(im not sure if i wrot it in the right way) Al2Si2O5(OH)4. Caolin is a silicate mineral called after
Gao Lyan(i dont know whether i wrot it right) where, as thought, the porticular teaware was first made. The amoun of this mineral it is exactly what gives Yixing teaware its magic properties, the other stuff is just normal petrified clay found all around the world. Of course it can also vary in contain of different minerals.

The member of teachat Findedrean knows much bettere about it than me so she can correct me if im not right or give youmore information about it.

[xuancheng]

It is my main goal in life right now to try one of these babies from Hojo tea

http://hojotea.com/item_e/mumyoi.htm

Check out this section on Japanese Zhuni, also read what they have to say about japanese purple clay.



I have nothing bad to say about Yixing clay, except that sometimes I wish they felt they could get a fair price for their work through good craftsmanship and an honest representation of their work instead of telling tall tales about the best clay in the world (They haven't ever been anywhere else). Yee mentions Taiwanese teapots, there are also teapots made in Chaozhou.

The Dutch also made copies of Yixing teapots starting in the 18th century, I believe. It would be nice to get one of those too.

The vast majority of people in Yixing also do not have the same sort of Tea culture as many other places where Chinese people live. In general, many Yixing potters drink only red tea: Yixing or Yangxian hong. They don't understand what clay type, pot thickness or firing temperature will affect different types of tea. For these types of questions you are better off asking people from HK, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, etc. Yixing people are good at making the pots though.

[yee]

it is a rock mined from deep and ground into a powder and mixed with water and fermented,

What kind of fermentation could you possibly have in it?

[xuancheng]

it is a rock mined from deep and ground into a powder and mixed with water and fermented,

What kind of fermentation could you possibly have in it?

The problem is in Chinese, fermentation and oxidization are not usually differentiated. Of course there is a way to say oxidized, but not so many people use it. Kind of like English...

Yixing clay is set outside to oxidize, often for a few years.

[Oni]

It is my main goal in life right now to try one of these babies from Hojo tea

http://hojotea.com/item_e/mumyoi.htm

Check out this section on Japanese Zhuni, also read what they have to say about japanese purple clay.



I have nothing bad to say about Yixing clay, except that sometimes I wish they felt they could get a fair price for their work through good craftsmanship and an honest representation of their work instead of telling tall tales about the best clay in the world (They haven't ever been anywhere else). Yee mentions Taiwanese teapots, there are also teapots made in Chaozhou.

The Dutch also made copies of Yixing teapots starting in the 18th century, I believe. It would be nice to get one of those too.

The vast majority of people in Yixing also do not have the same sort of Tea culture as many other places where Chinese people live. In general, many Yixing potters drink only red tea: Yixing or Yangxian hong. They don't understand what clay type, pot thickness or firing temperature will affect different types of tea. For these types of questions you are better off asking people from HK, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, etc. Yixing people are good at making the pots though.

This is the exact same teapot I like from Hojo, it is around 130-150 ml, and he sells it for 28000 Yen, roughly 280 $, I wonder if anybody has a diffrent source who sells mumyoi teaware, just to compare the prices, I find them a bit too high.

[Tead Off]

It is my main goal in life right now to try one of these babies from Hojo tea

http://hojotea.com/item_e/mumyoi.htm

Check out this section on Japanese Zhuni, also read what they have to say about japanese purple clay.

You've probably read earlier posts of mine detailing my experience at Hojo's tasting zhuni and Sado side by side. Let me go over some of my findings.

Hojo confided in me (finally) that the Sado pots were not 100% red clay, maybe 75/80% with different color clay mixed in. He is trying to get them to make a 100% red clay pot. He told me this after I told him that his $1800 zhuni pot outclassed the Sado in the taste and smell department. I came there ready to buy mind you. The Sado was good but could not compare, imo, to the zhuni. This is when he told me that the Sado were not 100% and if they were, they would be as good or better than the zhuni.

The other issue I had with the pots were that none of the lids were tightly fitting. This surprised me because Japanese workmanship is usually very precise. Hojo acknowledged this issue, too. Given the price of the pots, the workmanship, and, the clay, for the same money, you can find a 70's/80's zhuni pot that will give you superior tea. I saw a handful of zhuni pots in Hong Kong that could be had for $200. Even LifeofTea could find you older pots for under $200 although I beleive they've stopped this service.

The Sado pots do have a lovely feeling to them and you can feel the density of these pots in your hand. I'm surprised there are no other vendors of Sadoyaki that I've run across. Anyone else know other sources?

[Aphroditea]

The question that kicked off this thread was certainly interesting. I agree that the premise of 'the world's best clay' is a bit hard to swallow. After reading the replying posts it seems to me that what you need is a Kaolinite clay which is sandy (this is not hard at all since Kaolinite is defined by its richness in silicates) and also iron-rich. These elements can certainly be compressed into rock and this happens all over. Interestingly there are several places around the world which should (and have) yeilded just such a combination - the Assam region of India and Southern Brazil to name just a couple.

So, I am disinclined to believe that it is the clay itself which makes yixing so sought after. I am more inclined to believe it to be 1) the craftsman knowlege in pot production and 2) the mystique and almost mythic allure of the product.

[xuancheng]

You've probably read earlier posts of mine detailing my experience at Hojo's tasting zhuni and Sado side by side.

No, I haven't ever read any review of these by anyone. Thanks a lot for re-capping. I will dig up your old posts and check them out as well.

I agree with you and Oni, they do seem rather expensive. Maybe it will have to wait. I also agree with both of you that another source must be found for these beautiful pots. Maybe I should start learning Japanese now.

Even LifeofTea could find you older pots for under $200 although I beleive they've stopped this service.

They've stopped already? that was fast.

[Tead Off]

Aphroditea, I also think you are correct to assume that there are other places in the world with excellent clay for tea. I have always held this belief. The one element that seems to be key in clay affecting the tea is iron. The higher, the better. Upwards of 20% for zhuni red clay is quite high, no? Up to 12% in purple clay.

In Japan, banko clay and Sado clay are other red clays that produce great effect with tea. This is in combination with the firing process of the clay. The Chinese were masters of clay production and have a long history of working with clay and tea. It is only natural they would discover the secrets of all of this. If America was an inherently tea drinking society for 2000 years, they would also discover some native clays that could be as good as anything else for tea. I don't think it is marketing that brainwashes the tea drinker to believe that yixing is superior to other clays. It is brainwashing that makes most people think that ANY yixing pot is going to give them a superior cup of tea, though. Most are not even as good as porcelain.

[chrl42]

The vast majority of people in Yixing also do not have the same sort of Tea culture as many other places where Chinese people live. In general, many Yixing potters drink only red tea: Yixing or Yangxian hong. They don't understand what clay type, pot thickness or firing temperature will affect different types of tea. For these types of questions you are better off asking people from HK, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, etc. Yixing people are good at making the pots though

It's a matter of who you associate with. It's a matter of what potter you are naming. Using groups to generalize fews (as few as Yixing gets) is the most common mistake when people get to understand China. You have to understand the Cultural Revolution, how communism tried to eliminate elitism or how China's first peasant emperor Zhu Yuan Zhang tried to destroy aristocracy, so at the end, this is what China got, looked down upon by the world, cunning merchants, but China is big..hell of complication. Chinese generosity gave cunning potter feed their family, grand masters say nothing about fake yixing producers, but that's just part of Chinese culture, but it seems they also started to realize good and bad.

And no, HK, Taiwan, Singaporean don't understand much as Yixing people do (ok, selected people). Serious clay study just had been started since 90's, cos that's when Yixing clay saw its end in quantity. And of course the Chinese are naive to say "yes, old prophets are always right".. after that. Were people you met happened to be Han Qi Lou? Hua Jian? or any come close to the level of grand masters? What's cristism useful when there's no standard?

To reason recent studies and Ming dynasty's Zhou Gao Qi's book can be another topic, since recent Yixing students are still hallucinated at clay like Tian Qing ni, or its color pig-liver..trying to find Yixing clay closest to history's greatest Tian Qing ni (so far no.4 mine Di Cao Qing, Zhu Gan ni, Qing Hui ni did so..)

One thing, recent has done better than old, is firing. Back then, most of em were done from wood-filn, but now, experienced potters know how to select different kilns for different clays ('experienced'), how to avoid Ben Shan Lu ni's 'Tu Hei-black dots caused by none-crystallization', how to give Zhuni best shaping, best color etc..

The problem is in Chinese, fermentation and oxidization are not usually differentiated

Fermentation is 发酵, oxidation is 氧化, the difference, at least most of Puerh drinkers in Korea understand it, I don't know why you or the Chinese see the difficulties.

it seems to me that what you need is a Kaolinite clay which is sandy (this is not hard at all since Kaolinite is defined by its richness in silicates)

Al2Si2O5(OH)4 is composition of kaolinite, mixed clay of some sort, silica (SiO2) on the other hand is what makes up beach sand, glass, silicon, quartz mineral, Yixing clay is known to contain the highest amount of silica, not kaolinite (one of three major Yixing clay called 'Bai Ni' yet is mainly of kaolinite) at least in China.

These are Ben Shan Lu ni (silica-richest Yixing clay) http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3375/362 ... bf.jpg?v=0 (Han Qi Lou's Qing dynasty teapot)
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3260/317 ... 82.jpg?v=0

This is Bai ni
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3644/362 ... 72.jpg?v=0

There are as well places locals tried to call a fight Yixing clay, Yunnan Jianshui, Guangxi Qinzhou, Sichuan Chongqing, Guangdong Chaozhou, Guizhou, Hunan etc, they also have history of making clay pots for tea,

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3606/362 ... 76.jpg?v=0 (Guangxi clay)
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3348/362 ... df.jpg?v=0 (High quality Zini)

Also, surrounding regions like Tanxi, Hufu, Zhejiang make up today's most of Yixing teapot market.

I also put some words the other days,

http://www.teachat.com/viewtopic.php?t=8073 (Yixing clay general instruction)
http://teadrunk.org/viewtopic.php?id=35 (Yixing clay firing condition)

I mean, it's so easy to bring down one when there's no substitute. Let me ask, what do Taiwanese, Korean, Japanese potters say about Yixing teapot? Well, they make pots, too. They also open exhibitions, seminars, moreover closer personal relationship than us. I know it's funny to appreciate 'little' clay and tea is just tea, but well, at least to me it seems more reasonable to do than some 100bucks-a day Japanese Chadao class.

[yee]

The question that kicked off this thread was certainly interesting. I agree that the premise of 'the world's best clay' is a bit hard to swallow. After reading the replying posts it seems to me that what you need is a Kaolinite clay which is sandy (this is not hard at all since Kaolinite is defined by its richness in silicates) and also iron-rich. These elements can certainly be compressed into rock and this happens all over. Interestingly there are several places around the world which should (and have) yeilded just such a combination - the Assam region of India and Southern Brazil to name just a couple.

So, I am disinclined to believe that it is the clay itself which makes yixing so sought after. I am more inclined to believe it to be 1) the craftsman knowlege in pot production and 2) the mystique and almost mythic allure of the product.

All clays are based on kaolinite(starting from 47%).

[mornemir]

Very interesting topic! My grandfather was a geologist so i know alittle about stones and minerals, but it does not matter cause if you want to check if the clay is really unique you have to do the research yourself But i can say that the experience of Yixing artists is unique. I would agree that it is a business and they speculate this experience but im dissagre that vendors in Hong-Kong know better, i lived in HK for a while and i can say that prices are too high.