Xiang Tong Ru Yi Yixing Zisha Teapot – Xiekeqing Clay, 200ml

This is a 200 ml zisha teapot in Xiekeqing Clay, wood-fired, made in Dingshu, Yixing. Its Chinese name is 享通如意.

The clay. Named for its colour — the blue-grey of a crab shell. A cool, muted body with a fine sandy grain, most often seen wood-fired, where the ash brings the grey to life. Sits between duanni's openness and zini's steadiness, and stays visually calm on a crowded tea table.

The form. This is the Xiang Tong Ru Yi form — 享通如意 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. Fired in a wood kiln, where flame path and falling ash decide the surface. Every piece comes out of the kiln differently, and none of it can be repeated on purpose.

Size and tea. 200 ml is a sharing pot. It suits a table of four or more, or a long single steep of something you want to drink slowly over an afternoon. Best suited to raw pu-erh, light oolong and green tea.

This pot. Catalogue no. 202, 200 ml, US$80. Photographed individually — the images show the pot you receive.

Made by 刘群. 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

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• Lianyun Yixing Zisha Teapot — Xiekeqing Clay, 180 ml, $80

Or browse every Xiekeqing pot · the full Yixing catalogue.