Square Form Yixing Zisha Teapot – Benshan Luni Clay, 150ml

This is a 150 ml square form teapot in Benshan Luni Clay, hand-carved, made in Dingshu, Yixing. Its Chinese name is 六方井泉.

The clay. Cut from a thin green seam inside the zini layer — 'clay within clay, rock within rock'. Scarce, delicate, and with a narrow firing window, so pure-ore pots are genuinely hard to make. Fires a tender yellow-green that turns quietly jade-like with use. A scholar's clay rather than a workhorse.

The form. The Square Form (方器) dates to the traditional category, attributed to various. Square work is the harder half of the craft: every plane must be cut, joined and trued by hand, and any error shows along the whole edge. Crisp arrises and flat faces. Judged on whether the seams disappear.

How it was made. Decoration cut into the leather-hard clay by hand with a steel blade, in the Yixing engraving tradition that goes back to Chen Mansheng's collaborations with potters.

Size and tea. 150 ml serves two to three people from a single fill, which makes it the most generally useful size on a tea table. Best suited to green tea, white tea and raw pu-erh.

One honest note on duanni-family clays: because the body is pale and very open, dark and heavily roasted teas can leave uneven marks if the pot is handled with oily hands or left wet. Rinse it, dry it, and keep it to lighter teas and it will come up beautifully.

This pot. Catalogue no. 419, 150 ml, US$1200. Photographed individually — the images show the pot you receive.

Made by 陈群. We buy directly from the workshop rather than through a wholesaler, so the attribution comes with the pot.

New to zisha? Read how to season a Yixing teapot before first use.

Similar teapots

• Handmade Jia Lan Ban Ruo Yixing Zisha Teapot — Benshan Luni Clay, 100 ml, $500
• Shuiping Yixing Zisha Teapot — Hongpilong Clay, 120 ml, $1000
• Liu Fang Yu Jing Yixing Zisha Teapot — Aged Zini Clay, 150 ml, $750

Or browse every Benshan Luni pot · the full Yixing catalogue.