Bought it! I am not sure Real or Fake?

[VanFersen]

Hi there,

I had some money left on my paypal account. I saw these yixing tea cups on ebay I thought they look quite fancy. Now they are here but I am not sure. I got a little knowledge about yixing but...hm what do you say?

Here is the original site:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/8pc-Tang-Poems- ... 7675.l2557

They say that all 8 cups are made out of 8 different clay types. These ones: tianqing ni,benshan ni,qingshui ni,duan ni,pingzi ni,zhima ni,zi ni,xiehuang ni.

What I noticed when I cooked them in boiling water that after the procedure they reacted differently. Some of them had a stronger clay scent some not really and some of them cooled down quite fast while others stood warm for quite a long time. So in those cases it really looks like that they are definitely are not the same. But another thing I noticed and maybe if you compare the ebay site and my pictures you can see that not all cups are the same as on their pictures. I mean this doesn't mean anything bad but what I really would like to know now is if they are the real think or just some mixed crap and if someone can tell me if they are what they say what types they should be.

Here are some picture I took:



On this picture I ordered the cups from the fastest cold ones from the top left until the "stayed warm the longest" to the bottom right. What type of clay is the second one in the first row "red one with dark dots. And the first one in the third row "the blue grey one" why is there a red dot?

[bagua7]

They are OK. If you don't want those cups, you can always send them to me.

[VanFersen]

But they are not all real clay or? Some seams to be mixed. Especially the red-brown one with the huge amount on black dots seams suspicious. Or?

[Teaism]

Yes, seems new, my guess is Jezhiang clay with pigmentation to simulate different clay color. Smell it carefully, if there is funny smell, just use it for decoration. That is my personal guess. I might be wrong.

Cheers!

[VanFersen]

Four of them typically smell like clay and the other ones smell like nothing at all very neutral.

By the way...what is this " Jezhiang clay" anyway? I haven't found anything on the net yet about it

[the_economist]

Since Yixing clay is scarce and expensive, some potters use clay from other regions (Zhejiang is a province in China south of Yixing) and process them so as to imitate Yixing clay.

[chrl42]

adulterated clay.