Greeting from Yixing-Origin place of Zisha

[TEAMOOD]

Hello Tea Mates!

The amaze of tea culture bringing all here, I hope to contribute a little from the aspect of being a local folk from the very origin place of Yixing zisha teapot. Actually, from business occasions I became a fan of oolong leaves BEFORE being more interested in hometown teapots.

My family business has been about teapots but I've been an exception, burying myself into business of global industrial products in the past 10years during which I've been travelling a lot across the world and occasionally saw various styles of tea shops with zisha teapots on shelves scattered over the world.

I notice teapot is quite a highly-discussed topic and everyone is willing to share with others the collections on hand. Also, I notice there's still a gap of acknowledgement about our teapots by tea fans in and outside China. Overseas availability of various teapot styles, designs and high cost-performance ones are limited, there maybe three reasons(from marketing perspective of views):

A. Maybe due to the filtering control by traders on sourcing and procurement determined by their targeted margin with their clients' fixed middle-low level of price acceptance (relatively compared to the one of China domestic market which has increased obviously during the last 6-7 years). Overseas sales costs are definitely higher than our locals, they have international logistic costs , operational team's pay and mainland Invoice taxes (when they try to get the shipment out, this becomes mandatory I think). Deals among our locals basically no taxes at all.

B. Maybe our locals wouldn't like to sell extreme low-profit teapots to outsiders, especially those need to be made from moderate or good local clays which are becoming not so easy to get. e.g. with certain quantity of stock of clay on hand, one brand or one workshop wouldn't hesitate to make them into teapots or other zisha accessories of higher value and higher price acceptance by clients.

C. There're still old stock of traders outside Yixing who are aiming for overseas market to consume their burden. Global economic problem and zisha-storm(negative) influence both contributed on the later weak demand.

D. The limitation of traders outside of Yixing on valuing the worth of a zisha teapot among 'old' and 'modern'. But I also notice more and more overseas fan become more realistic and professional on choosing between the two. Aftercall, whether new or old, quality of clay, techniques of art skills are both being considered when purchasing. More, nowadays, local young artists are also creative on designs and the value of their works are being recognized more and more at least in domestic market.

Economic development during the last 6-7 years further levelled-up mainland China's ability of spending money. Thus, teapot sales make more money than long before that. That's why this business attracted more people from other cities here in Yixing. Roughly there're 50,000 people in this zisha teaware & accessory business, almost half of them are non-locals who brought with them new decoration techniques and craftmanship from other teaware culture.

It's quite a pity that many good and affordable choices are not being presented to people who really have passion on it but having to stay away from it just because of the tagged beyond-budget prices, or limited choices of design and styles, or because of many doubts on the raw materials but having no one to provide insight advice.

Hope what I've learned about local zisha business and my subjective passion in this hobby could help people get what they really like from less barriers and have more choices within budgets.

Joe

[AndrewGC]

Hi Joe! You're MOST welcome here to TeaChat! Great to see your exciting and engaging posts! We were in need of a teapot expert! Thank you for joining our communiTEA, and for your wonderful comments so far! Let me know if you ever need anything! Cheers.

Hello Tea Mates!

[TEAMOOD]

Hi Joe! You're MOST welcome here to TeaChat! Great to see your exciting and engaging posts! We were in need of a teapot expert! Thank you for joining our communiTEA, and for your wonderful comments so far! Let me know if you ever need anything! Cheers.

Hello Tea Mates!

Dear Andrew,
Thank you for being so nice!
If there is anything I can help, I'd be love to.

Joe

[Benheld]

Glad to read your thread here. Welcome to the community. Enjoy!

[EmileInido]

Thanks for the input lads hopefully it goes smith basically if they are engine will work il use the out bits from old engine and put onto new engine