Handmade Hai Tang Yixing Zisha Teapot – Aged Zini Clay, 130ml

This is a 130 ml zisha teapot in Aged Zini Clay, fully handmade, made in Dingshu, Yixing. Its Chinese name is 海棠.

The clay. Zini ore that has been weathered and stored for years before use. The saying in Yixing is that clay grows more supple with age — aged zini works more smoothly on the wheel and fires to a deeper, more settled purple. Mellower than fresh zini. The liquor comes through soft and rounded rather than bright, which is why long-time drinkers tend to gravitate to older stock.

The form. This is the Jin Wen Hai Tang form — 筋纹海棠 in Chinese. It is one of the many shapes carried in the Dingshu workshops outside the small set of canonical forms, and it is built by the same slab-and-beat method as the classics. We describe what we can verify: the ore, the method and the proportions.

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. 130 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 ripe pu-erh, aged white tea and black tea.

This pot. Catalogue no. 249, 130 ml, US$450. Photographed individually — the images show the pot you receive.

Made by an independent Dingshu potter working outside the titled-master system. We do not attach a name we cannot verify.

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

Similar teapots

• Shuang Xian Zhu Gu Yixing Zisha Teapot — Aged Zini Clay, 130 ml, $400
• Handmade Duo Qiu Yixing Zisha Teapot — Aged Zini Clay, 100 ml, $350
• Rongtian Yixing Zisha Teapot — Aged Zini Clay, 150 ml, $450

Or browse every Aged Zini pot · the full Yixing catalogue.