One wouldn't leap to the conclusion that a piece is toxic, I'd think, without ascertaining for certain which chemical was present. It's a heavy charge and I'd want to be certain of its accuracy before abandoning a reputable vendor.
+1 The above is true for me regardless of who the vendor is.
Bagua7's point was about additives to clay. And again, it's difficult for me to believe
every Taiwanese potter's clay would be suspect on
every teapot for the reasons I've already mentioned in my prior post. There are many artisans in Taiwan and it seems to me incredulous that all Taiwan pottery/teapots would be suspect or that Taiwanese potters uniformly add chemicals/additives to their clay that completely result in unsafe pots. Again, one would want to be careful in their assertions. From his blog, I respect Stephane and his perspectives but would need further clarification on his purported unwillingness to sell Taiwanese teapots before I would be unduly swayed to avoid Taiwanese wares. I would not bring any special caution to Taiwanese teaware that I wouldn't also bring to any other teaware I wanted to source. In fact, honestly, I'd personally be much more conscious around any teapots from China. This is due to certain dealings I have had with mainland Chinese culture. A common mistake many people make is to incorporate Taiwan into China. Taiwanese culture, while ostensibly Chinese, is a distinct and individual expression of Chinese culture and I don't want to digress too far into differences post (and pre) 1949 between the mainland and Taiwan. However, even with regards to mainland Chinese wares, I remain open.
Potters, I assume, the world over have varied sources for their clays and mix them or don't as they see fit. Even Petr Novak has discussed this somewhat on his blog (
http://potsandtea.blogspot.com/2013/11/ ... clays.html):
"How natural are your clays"? I can replay that clays are natural by nature. But this answer would not go to the point, would it? Clays can be mixed together and grinded to desired characteristic. Clays can be also enrich by natural as well as more or less artificial additives: river sand, quartz, grog, feldspar, iron scales, saw dust, oxides of different metals or other colorants and so on... the list can be quite long. Clay companies usually creates recipe of new clay by mixing several clays from several mines/deposits, then grind them to fine, seamless clay, add grog of certain grain size as bones of the clay and other additives, if needed. All is mixed again and "pug-milled" to plactic bags. Such bags are then waiting for potters as we are, ready to use. Or, in order to create our own recipe with special quality we are looking for, can be mixed and adjust again. This practice have quite a few obvious benefits and most of our clays come to our studio this way (we pay attention to companies we buy from - clay have to be simple, without any artificial colorants or additions). Getting clays this way means less of the hard work, stable clay body and pretty wide range of different clays to work with. But there is few things missing and that is why we keep searching for really natural clays." (Petr Novak)
Blessings!