Handmade Sculptural Form Yixing Zisha Teapot – Jiangponi Clay, 180ml – No. 362

This is a 180 ml sculptural form teapot in Jiangponi Clay, fully handmade, made in Dingshu, Yixing. Its Chinese name is 鸣远梅桩.

The clay. Mined from the slope between Huanglong and Qinglong mountains, where red and yellow ores meet — so the fired body carries both, warm and softly mottled. Fine-grained with a gentle sand feel. It polishes to an oily lustre faster than most clays and brews sweet and round.

The form. The subject here is plum stump — in Chinese decorative vocabulary, flowering before anything else does. Naturalistic work — huaqi — takes its subject from the living world: gourds, pine, bamboo, lotus, fruit, animals. It descends directly from Gongchun's tree-burl pot, the founding object of the craft. Each piece is modelled and carved rather than turned, so no two come out the same.

How it was made. Built entirely by hand — the wall is beaten out from a slab and joined without a mould. Inside the body you can still read the tool marks and the joint line, which is how the method is verified.

Size and tea. At 180 ml this fills three or four cups at once — enough for guests without moving to a full teapot. Best suited to black tea, light oolong and ripe pu-erh.

This pot. Catalogue no. 362, 180 ml, US$2000. Photographed individually — the images show the pot you receive.

Made by 周志昌. 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 Sculptural Form Yixing Zisha Teapot — Jiangponi Clay, 150 ml, $550
• Handmade Pumpkin Form Yixing Zisha Teapot — Jiangponi Clay, 160 ml, $450
• Handmade Sculptural Form Yixing Zisha Teapot — Jiangponi Clay, 208 ml, $450

Or browse every Jiangponi pot · the full Yixing catalogue.