Bian Yu Yixing Zisha Teapot – Zhuni Clay, 160ml

This is a 160 ml zisha teapot in Zhuni Clay, hand-carved, made in Dingshu, Yixing. Its Chinese name is 扁玉.

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 Bian Yu form — 扁玉 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. 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. At 160 ml this fills three or four cups at once — enough for guests without moving to a full teapot. Best suited to oolong, dancong and green tea.

This pot. Catalogue no. 338, 160 ml, US$650. 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

• Handmade Jing Guan Yixing Zisha Teapot — Zhuni Clay, 130 ml, $700
• Shuiping Yixing Zisha Teapot — Zhuni Clay, 130 ml, $600
• Handmade Ribbed Form Yixing Zisha Teapot — Zhuni Clay, 200 ml, $599

Or browse every Zhuni pot · the full Yixing catalogue.