Handmade Jin Wen Zhu Gu Yixing Zisha Teapot – Zhuni Clay, 135ml

This is a 135 ml zisha teapot in Zhuni Clay, fully handmade, made in Dingshu, Yixing. Its Chinese name is 筋纹竹鼓.

The clay. Very high in iron, fired to a bright vermilion, and dense enough to ring when the lid is tapped. Zhuni shrinks by up to twenty percent in the kiln, so a large share of every batch cracks — the Yixing saying is that a zhuni pot without wrinkles is not zhuni. Dense and low-porosity, so it holds aroma at the surface instead of absorbing it. This is the clay that makes fragrant teas smell like themselves.

The form. This is the Jin Wen Zhu Gu form — 筋纹竹鼓 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. 135 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 oolong, dancong and green tea.

This pot. Catalogue no. 257, 135 ml, US$850. Photographed individually — the images show the pot you receive.

Made by 李辉. 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 Jing Guan Yixing Zisha Teapot — Zhuni Clay, 130 ml, $700
• Square Form Yixing Zisha Teapot — Zhuni Clay, 160 ml, $800
• Handmade Yu Hua Long Yixing Zisha Teapot — Zhuni Clay, 170 ml, $550

Or browse every Zhuni pot · the full Yixing catalogue.