Handmade Tree-Trunk Sculptural Form Yixing Zisha Teapot – Zhuni Clay, 200ml

This is a 200 ml tree-trunk sculptural form teapot in Zhuni Clay, fully handmade, made in Dingshu, Yixing. Its Chinese name is 树桩.

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 subject here is tree stump — in Chinese decorative vocabulary, bark, burl and growth rings modelled directly. 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. 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. 224, 200 ml, US$3500. Photographed individually — the images show the pot you receive.

Made by 蒋艺华. 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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• Handmade Jin Wen Zhu Gu Yixing Zisha Teapot — Zhuni Clay, 135 ml, $850

Or browse every Zhuni pot · the full Yixing catalogue.