"Bamboo & Stone" Handcraft Chinese Yixing Clay Teapot 190ml

Bamboo & Stone (Zhu Shi) is a 190ml Yixing teapot in red qingshui clay. That's a zisha clay, but it fires to a warm red-brown rather than the darker tone most people picture when they hear "purple clay". The body is a plain bamboo-segment form with one raised ridge at the waist. Spout and handle are both modelled as bamboo nodes, right down to the joint marks.

All the decoration sits on the lid. A few bamboo leaves are cut into the surface, and next to them there's one small pierced Taihu stone, shaped by hand and used as the knob. Bamboo and rock is an old subject in Chinese painting — Zheng Banqiao spent most of his career on it. Here it's a few leaves and one stone, and that's the whole picture.

At 190ml the pot fills five or six small cups per steep, which suits two or three people around a table.

Product details

• Capacity: 190ml (give or take 10ml, measured by hand)
• Size: 12.9cm spout to handle, 6.4cm tall, 6.5cm across the mouth
• Clay: raw-ore red qingshui zisha
• Decoration: hand-cut bamboo, hand-shaped Taihu stone knob
• Filter: nine holes punched by hand at the spout opening
• Origin: Yixing, Jiangsu Province, China

This works well for

• Gongfu brewing of rock oolong, roasted oolong, or ripe pu-erh
• Sharing tea with one or two people
• Anyone who likes carved work but doesn't want a pot covered in it

Joanne's tip

Give this one a dark tea and let it stay there. A roasted oolong or a ripe pu-erh suits the red clay, and you'll see the surface start to change within a few months. The nine-hole filter also pours faster than you'd expect from a pot this small, so don't overfill it the first time.

In the gift set

The pot arrives boxed with its certificate and a brocade pouch.

Seasoning your new Yixing teapot

Before first use, season the teapot to open the clay's pores:

1. Rinse the lid, spout and body with warm water
2. Submerge in a pot of water (place a cloth underneath) and simmer for 30-60 minutes
3. Brew a strong batch of the tea you'll dedicate this pot to
4. Fill the teapot with the brewed tea and soak for at least 24 hours
5. Rinse with warm water and air dry

Never use soap on unglazed clay. Rinse with hot water after each session. Unglazed zisha holds onto the flavour of whatever you brew in it, which is why one pot gets one tea. After months of the same tea, plain hot water poured through the pot will carry a trace of it.

Related

• Chinese Yixing Clay Teapots
• Big Red Robe Oolong
• Dong Ding Oolong
• "Sweet Stock" Ripe Pu-erh Brick 2021 Huang Pian

Shipping

Each Yixing teapot is individually wrapped in foam and boxed. Ships from Hobart, Tasmania. Free delivery on orders over $95 Australia-wide.