Zhuni Clay

[oolongtimenosee]

There seems to be a disparity between most vendors who will insist on having real Zhuni and the majority of independent collectors or experts mostly stating that real Zhuni clay is very rare and ergo expensive. All this is common knowledge and it seems unlikely to me that information to the contrary would not be more wide spread if it were true.

Rare due to:
1. the scarcity of the material itself.
2. the high rate of loss in production due to the difficulty in firing the clay with its high shrinkage rate.

We also know that nowadays we can not say for sure what is in any given clay out of China.
Which is the main reason why people hunt for the old factory pots, even though the workmanship is not as good as on many of the modern pots. At least we know for sure that there are no possibly hazardous additives in the older clays.

Today the only indication is a certain price range - not for certain of course as there are over priced pots everywhere - but at least more likely than a pot for 20 USD.

Not saying you are selling bad pots, just might not be what you think it is, which is ok as the price is not high, so I would not expect it to be either.

Yes, but we don't sell any teapots in that price range. It's impossible to buy a real Yixing teapot for $20 unless someone is being cheated (either the buyer or the seller).

Actually we were hesitant to list Zhuni teapots at first because we saw how distorted the foreign market is. We see teapots going for well above the Chinese retail rate all the time. We decided to offer our teapots at the same price point that they are sold in China. Again, Jiuhan, the company I mentioned above, is a trusted gauge in China for the market rate of these clays. You can see for yourself.

I understand that it is difficult to know what to trust for buyers outside of the country, but for anyone in China, it is not hard to come up with a list of trustworthy studios after doing a little research. It's much harder to buy a real factory 1 teapot. The antique market is one of the least trustworthy markets in the country. You can always research a modern studio, visit, compare it to other examples, see their source, talk to other collectors who buy their teaware. For antiques you are taking the word or trusting the knowledge of one collector.

[DongbeiRenr]

Which is the main reason why people hunt for the old factory pots, even though the workmanship is not as good as on many of the modern pots. At least we know for sure that there are no possibly hazardous additives in the older clays.

Do you have any real proof of this? I hear this all the time but have never seen anyone actually provide evidence beyond something like, "XYZ 'tea master'/collector/'expert'" told me so.

Seems like a lot of anti-modern Yixing people really have an ax to grind. In another forum someone went off in an Yixing thread about how everything from the Mainland is tainted, everyone there is a liar and cheat, etc. There was some obvious bias coming in given his background and that seems to be the case for many anti-modern Yixing posters/bloggers/'experts' I've seen.

Edit: I couldn't agree more with the above post regarding modern Yixing pots vs. old factory pots on the mainland. Most collectors/enthusiasts I know don't even mess with old factory pots given how "deep the water is, "to use the Chinese way of talking about it.

[FBee]

The antique market is one of the least trustworthy markets in the country.

That is for sure. Anyone looking for antiques or vintage in China itself will have difficulty to find anything real.

The market for those is in the Chinese diaspora, in South-East Asia, Taiwan to some extent HK and - Japan. If you know where to look it is not too difficult. At least the 90ies stuff is pretty easy to come by. Anything older becomes a thing of patience and money.

[FBee]

Do you have any real proof of this? I hear this all the time but have never seen anyone actually provide evidence beyond something like, "XYZ 'tea master'/collector/'expert'" told me so.

No more scientific proof than the opposite. But if you think about the extremely speedy and sometimes hasty development that China has accomplished in the last decades, it has come at a cost of partially extreme pollution of soil. I personally know someone who has undertaken a farming project and had finally switched to aquaponics, because the soil would take another few decades to become clean again. Altogether with full cover to avoid air pollution. Of course not all places are polluted, but it is hard to know which areas are affected.

I would not go as far as to say that all modern stuff is bad and tainted, just that vintage seems like a safer bet and the 90ies stuff is actually not much more expensive and sometimes cheaper than new pots. I am also a fan of not using more resources whenever possible, so if there are good pots made already, no reason to fire more smoke up the atmosphere...

The workmanship of a lot of modern pots is outstanding. All I am saying is that nowadays there also a lot of scandals of tainted things in China, food, toys etc, so there is reason to be careful.

[DongbeiRenr]

Do you have any real proof of this? I hear this all the time but have never seen anyone actually provide evidence beyond something like, "XYZ 'tea master'/collector/'expert'" told me so.

No more scientific proof than the opposite. But if you think about the extremely speedy and sometimes hasty development that China has accomplished in the last decades, it has come at a cost of partially extreme pollution of soil. I personally know someone who has undertaken a farming project and had finally switched to aquaponics, because the soil would take another few decades to become clean again. Altogether with full cover to avoid air pollution. Of course not all places are polluted, but it is hard to know which areas are affected.

I would not go as far as to say that all modern stuff is bad and tainted, just that vintage seems like a safer bet and the 90ies stuff is actually not much more expensive and sometimes cheaper than new pots. I am also a fan of not using more resources whenever possible, so if there are good pots made already, no reason to fire more smoke up the atmosphere...

The workmanship of a lot of modern pots is outstanding. All I am saying is that nowadays there also a lot of scandals of tainted things in China, food, toys etc, so there is reason to be careful.

"No more scientific proof than the opposite." That's not how it works, though. If you make a claim, you have to provide evidence, not make someone else provide evidence that your claim is false. I see people just assuming that all new pots are fake/tainted/whatever while old pots are pure and without any additives without ever providing any evidence to prove it. Who says they didn't add iron oxide powder to pots in the factory days? Is there any actual scientific proof of the purity of the older pots versus modern pots? That's what I'm curious about. It wouldn't be hard to test if someone had the equipment and time/money to run the tests.

That said, I think there's reason to be careful about anything in life.

[FBee]

"No more scientific proof than the opposite." That's not how it works, though. If you make a claim, you have to provide evidence, not make someone else provide evidence that your claim is false.

Of course you are right. While I do not have scientific evidence, there are a lot reports from people who buy modern Yixings and notice chemical and other non-desirable smells in their teaware, which is an indication of tainted teaware for whatever reason. I have yet to hear about someone saying that in regards to a genuine vintage piece...

That said, I think there's reason to be careful about anything in life.

Very true!

[DongbeiRenr]

"No more scientific proof than the opposite." That's not how it works, though. If you make a claim, you have to provide evidence, not make someone else provide evidence that your claim is false.

Of course you are right. While I do not have scientific evidence, there are a lot reports from people who buy modern Yixings and notice chemical and other non-desirable smells in their teaware, which is an indication of tainted teaware for whatever reason. I have yet to hear about someone saying that in regards to a genuine vintage piece...

That said, I think there's reason to be careful about anything in life.

Very true!

As for the chemical smells, I've never seen that, but then again I've never purchased/handled any of the pots that sell for 30 RMB with free shipping in the mainland. I wouldn't even want to raise plants in one of those! That said, I've had a vintage pot enthusiast tell me my 1500 RMB pot is tainted with tons of chemicals/is fake/etc. while it has no chemical smells whatsoever and no obvious reason to believe it is fake/tainted/etc.

It seems to me you're not in that camp though!

[FBee]

It seems to me you're not in that camp though!

No, I am one of the more reasonable Yixing extremists

I think the higher the price the more likely a modern pot will be made out of good and safe material. As you said, the good deals is where caution is warranted.

[FBee]

1500 RMB pot

seems like a reasonable price to expect good quality. Retail outside of China would likely be double or more, so I think you are right not to doubt it being safe.

[oolongtimenosee]

"No more scientific proof than the opposite." That's not how it works, though. If you make a claim, you have to provide evidence, not make someone else provide evidence that your claim is false.

Of course you are right. While I do not have scientific evidence, there are a lot reports from people who buy modern Yixings and notice chemical and other non-desirable smells in their teaware, which is an indication of tainted teaware for whatever reason. I have yet to hear about someone saying that in regards to a genuine vintage piece...

That said, I think there's reason to be careful about anything in life.

Very true!

As for the chemical smells, I've never seen that, but then again I've never purchased/handled any of the pots that sell for 30 RMB with free shipping in the mainland. I wouldn't even want to raise plants in one of those! That said, I've had a vintage pot enthusiast tell me my 1500 RMB pot is tainted with tons of chemicals/is fake/etc. while it has no chemical smells whatsoever and no obvious reason to believe it is fake/tainted/etc.

It seems to me you're not in that camp though!

I think this is the problem, modern fake yixing teapots are being confused for modern yixing teapots. A little research can help distinguish the reliable Yixing studios from the Taobao fakes. 30RMB for an Yixing teapot? Yeah, probably not real. Then again, I see lots of fake Factory 1 teapots selling on taobao and ebay, many of them with the appropriately inflated prices.

Edit: I agree completely with what you said about the "anti-Mainland bias". I think it's unfortunate but understandable given all of the junk teapots selling for $5 on auction sites. There has been a huge change in the industry over the last decade. This is obvious for anyone who has been in the country during this period. The modern Yixing teaware industry took years to recover from the upheavals in production methods, organization, and domestic consumption habits, and now has a number of trustworthy studios with quality products. The market is much more mature than it was even 10 years ago. This is true for many other areas in the Chinese economy as well. Many people still have this outdated view of China as being one big poisonous sweatshop. China produces more and more high value goods, in all sectors.

[FBee]

The market is much more mature than it was even 10 years ago. This is true for many other areas in the Chinese economy as well. Many people still have this outdated view of China as being one big poisonous sweatshop. China produces more and more high value goods, in all sectors.

That is very true, there is a lot of excellent stuff produced in China these days. A quick look at some active potters on Instagram reveals some very nice things.

As Taobao has been mentioned, I would like to add that is now far from what it used to be in the beginning. There are still a lot of fakes and doubtful goods, but there is a lot of good quality stuff as well.

One has to appreciate that Taobao is the equivalent of Amazon in China. Everyone is selling things there, from the little artist to the big factory. It is more difficult to navigate, but I have bought excellent things on Taobao. China is in some ways a lot more advanced, especially when it comes to digital payment and sale platforms. A lot of people I know in China have not touched hard currency in a loooong time, everything is bought and paid via mobile phone.

[carmeloneo]

nice work! I like its glossiness.

[oolongtimenosee]

nice work! I like its glossiness.

Thanks

[Islander]

"No more scientific proof than the opposite." That's not how it works, though. If you make a claim, you have to provide evidence, not make someone else provide evidence that your claim is false.

Of course you are right. While I do not have scientific evidence, there are a lot reports from people who buy modern Yixings and notice chemical and other non-desirable smells in their teaware, which is an indication of tainted teaware for whatever reason. I have yet to hear about someone saying that in regards to a genuine vintage piece...

That said, I think there's reason to be careful about anything in life.

Very true!

.....And I have yet to hear someone saying that in regards to a genuine modern piece. Some entries on this site make the Yixing collecting enterprise seem so daunting that some people might be discouraged. I've only been collecting for 4 years, so I'm still very new. But I have found some good pots in the $100 to $300 range. The reputable vendors I've purchased from are recommended throughout Teachat so no need to list them here.
As for Mud and Leaves who opened this thread, I have purchased 3 perfectly good pots from them, including 2 modern Zhu Ni. The new collector, or anyone who wants a good teapot in the $100 range, will find themselves making excellent tea with a pot from this vendor. I'm not associated with them.