Eggplant Form Yixing Zisha Teapot – Aged Zini Clay, 150ml

This is a 150 ml eggplant form teapot in Aged Zini Clay, hand-carved, made in Dingshu, Yixing. Its Chinese name is 茄段.

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. The subject here is aubergine — in Chinese decorative vocabulary, an everyday garden subject treated seriously. 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. 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 ripe pu-erh, aged white tea and black tea.

This pot. Catalogue no. 250, 150 ml, US$450. Photographed individually — the images show the pot you receive.

Made by 王伟. 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 Hai Tang Yixing Zisha Teapot — Aged Zini Clay, 130 ml, $450
• Handmade Sculptural Form Yixing Zisha Teapot — Aged Zini Clay, 140 ml, $550
• Rongtian Yixing Zisha Teapot — Aged Zini Clay, 150 ml, $450

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