steanze wrote:lvwen wrote: Please don't be. I will cheer you up with some statistics. It is said Yixing zisha material formed about 200-400 million years ago of Lacustrine sedimentary and marine sedimentary deposits . Up to now, there are 102 mines of various zisha material in the vicinity of Yixing. Proven reserve of zisha material is about 73 million tons, available reserve is about 65 million tons. From Ming Dynasty(1368-1644) until now, only a fraction of zisha material has been used.
Let us do some calculation. We presume a kilo of zisha material can produce 2 200 cc zisha teapots( minus losses during mining and grinding), the proven reserve can make 146 billion 200 cc teapots from now on.Thanks for the statistics and for teaching us more about Yixing! One thing I am curious about is how much of that clay is so-so zini, and how much of it is better clay.
If there is so much excellent clay that is easily available, I am trying to understand why I can't easily find on the market pots made of hongni with the quality of 1960s-70s Factory 1 hongni (smooth, fine grained texture, picks up patina quickly, the tea tastes crisp) for a cheap price. It is also a bit strange that Factory 1 would switch to lower quality hongni after the 1980s, if there was still so much of the better hongni left... And why there isn't more 茄子泥 or Factory 1 benshanlvni? I think that people would buy them if they were produced... Maybe I did not look in the right places. If you could find pots with clay like 60s-70s F1 hongni or 茄子泥 and sell them for a good price (say under $200) I would most likely get some, and you would probably make many of us here happy
Now F1 pots from the 60s-70s are expensive, and I think the pots on your website are very reasonably pricedI think the pots you offer are better than most other vendors available to the western market so do not take this as a criticism
You had a very good question there and it is beyond my knowledge. I contacted Wang Xixi, who is the granddaughter of Wang Yichun, who was once manager of Factory 1. She said in 60s-70s, the factory was owned by the state. As you all may well know, at that time, people in China could barely had their belly full. So zisha teapot was not as sought after as these days. They used the best of the best Huanglongshan material to make teapots, as they had ample time to refine the material. In the 80s, however, after the open up policy, the Taiwanese came in, they bought teapots in large quantity. Because of the huge demand, less than best material was used to meet the demand. That is the reason why F1 switched to lower quality material.
There is still best of the best material, but the price has soured since then. A teapot made from material similiar to the 60s-70s is very expensive these days. Wang Xixi's mother makes teapots using the clay, at about 4000-5000 dollars a piece.
She said those 60-70s teapots on sale in China are 99% fake if not from reliable sources.
