OK, I haven't checked out what that original ones might have made from,Drax wrote:Okay, very interesting... but now I'm confused (yes, it happens very easily on the topic of tea for me).
I take the conversation to mean that there's no "original" Yixing clay floating around. Okay, that's understandable. What are pots sold as "yixing" made from then? Just similar clay from other places?
How do you know you even have something that's made from a good type of porous mineral clay..., i.e. the point of getting such a pot (as far as I knew)?
But first you have to know the situation of Yixing clay. In Ming, Qing or ROC, yixing clay was not scarce at all, until after 50' and factories had been contructed, went on mass production, cared about quantity over quality. That situation, eventually drove Yixing clay scarce.
And over times, quality suffered. For example, what nowadays calls as 'sought-after' clay such as Di Cao Qing, 30 yrs ago it was just normal clay. Nowadays calls as 'rare' clay such as Jiang Po ni, Hong Pi Long 30yrs ago, it was just clay to make a vase, ornament, ceramic not teapot.
But to satisfy the boom caused in China and Asia or even West, nearby mountains, similar clay are still being exploited. But natural silica, iron contained amount decreasing, average temperature of firing getting lower, grits getting bigger, color out of kiln isn't satisfying enough.
Modern yixing mine, Hu Fu, as well has good yixing clay. But iron oxide is added to give more red color to Zhuni, polyester-installed cutters are used to rid of grits, clays are mixed or paste, in reminiscent of Huang Long Mt.
And I haven't mentioned Zhejiang muds yet.
Peace
