Handmade Ribbed Form Yixing Zisha Teapot – Zhuni Clay, 200ml

This is a 200 ml ribbed form teapot in Zhuni Clay, fully handmade, made in Dingshu, Yixing. Its Chinese name is 上合桃.

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. The Ribbed Form (筋纹器) dates to the traditional category, attributed to various. Ribbed work divides the body into equal lobes running from knob to foot. The lid must align with the body on every rib, in any rotation. Rhythmic and demanding. The test is whether the lid still lines up after a quarter turn.

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. 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 oolong, dancong and green tea.

This pot. Catalogue no. 306, 200 ml, US$599. 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 Ribbed Form Yixing Zisha Teapot — Zhuni Clay, 100 ml, $750
• Handmade Ribbed Form Yixing Zisha Teapot — Zhuni Clay, 110 ml, $1000
• Handmade Tree-Trunk Sculptural Form Yixing Zisha Teapot — Zhuni Clay, 200 ml, $3500

Or browse every Zhuni pot · the full Yixing catalogue.