Old Yixing teapots on Ebay

I think i'd avoid the vinegar. Since I don't buy old pots that smell funny, I have no real experience cleaning old dirty pots, but I'd think vinegar is not what you want to use.

MarshalN

In the case of Yixing pots, I think that since the vast majority of ones sold today are fake, that a great deal of responsibility for verifying anything you buy should just be considered normal.

--scott

Me too--please let me know how you like your teapots!

Danica

HobbesOx> Great stuff, thanks for sharing your results.

Danica wrote:

Well, my two pots arrived pretty quickly and in great shape. Both are clearly the pots shown in the auction photos, and both seem to have some real age, but I'm brought up pretty sharply against my utter ignorance of Chinese script and Yixing marks and against my profound lack of experience in really evaluating Yixing clays. All I can go by at this stage is how the pots look, feel, smell, and function.

The first pot

holds 150 ml and is made of red clay with an "orange peel" outer texture. It has simple rounded lines and a single-hole spout (no built-in strainer). The finish and workmanship seem comparable to a couple of Yixing Factory No. 1 pots from the 1990s bought for around the same price from Hou De. An hour's soak in hot filtered water followed by a good dose of peroxide bleach and repeated rinsing with hot filtered water removed all the old tea stains and any noticeable odor but left a clean "oily" patina. The pot has good vacuum--filled

2/3 with water and the spout stopped, the lid stays on when the pot is inverted--and pours smoothly without dribbling. Brewings of various lightly fermented Oolongs--including 2006 Snow Pear from Silk Road and the Premium Spring 2006 Alishan Jinxuan from Shan Shui--yielded multiple clean, fragrant infusions. Verdict: certainly a decent working pot for the money. At some point I'll try to find someone who really knows their pots to weigh in, but I'm quite pleased and look forward to many infusions!

Teapot # 2

is purportedly older--pre-1908 (!)--and made of "rough zhuni clay." Rough is the operable word here. The clay is not only rougher than pot #1 but also feels denser and harder. Again, it would be great to know what I'm holding and looking at! It has a single-hole spout and good vacuum, and it pours well. The finish and workmanship seem generally rougher than pot #1 and the two pots from Hou De. That's not necessarily a bad thing; the pot does have a fair bit of rustic character. This pot was more stained than the first one, and a strong dose of peroxide bleach created quite a fizz as the stains were lifted and disolved. After rinsing the pot retained a noticeable earthy odor--not really disagreeable but persistent in the face of successive doses of chlorine bleach, baking soda, and prolonged simmering in clean water. After all that, I had no concern about any microbial life, so I decided to brew some puerh in it. I started with the 1990 raw Menghai district Fang Cha Zhuan from Stephane Erler (Teamasters). Tasted side by side with the same tea brewed in a gaiwan, the teapot produced several infusions that felt a tasted rounder and better balanced. The nose from the teapot brew seemed a little spicier than from the gaiwan. The same test with the 1992 Meng Hai Loose Cooked puerh from Jing produced similar results. Verdict: I like the rustic character of this pot, but the jury's still out as to whether it becomes a daily brewing vessel. I am contacting a respected U.S. dealer to see if he'll look at it and give an opinion on the age and clay (and smell!).

Overall opinion: I was well enough pleased with my experience with Anling that I bought four more of his teapots! His inventory contains many pots that seem to have better workmanship individuality, and character than those from standard mass-produced commercial sources. Of course, he knows teapots and the market far better than most prospective customers, so don't expect to walk away with some rare treasure for a song! BW

Hi Bill,

Thanks for this--I should really write down my experiments with my teapots, but I don't have a digital camera to show you the pot I am talking about. I have a 175 ml zhuni teapot from Anling that brews high mountain oolongs quite well, very round body and round top, rough texture, nice teapot. And I have a 125 ml modified drum shape zhuni that somehow makes all sheng puer taste better. It's a really great brew pot, has become a daily pot. The third that I like is a 200 ml that makes great wuyi teas but I don't use it often because I can't drink that much tea.

I did get two from Anling that were poorly constructed, i.e. when I closed the hole in the lid the tea kep pouring. Somewhat my fault for not choosing well-designed teapots, instead going for the 'clever' look. Question for you (all you teapot users)--do you get good use from those types of teapots, or do you relegate them to the display case?

By the way I like your taste in teapots. You just bought two from Silkroadtrade that I had my eye on for the last six months! Let me know how you like that round little Lu Ya Jun. And I love the design of the square zini.

Best,

Danica

Bill Wolfe wrote:

One more thing I forgot to mention, try the second pot with Taiwanese high mountain oolongs; it's the right dimension and weight to get good heat to extract flavor, plus it looks like it has a fast pour. If you take a look at Stephane's teapot for sale for high mountain oolongs, it has quite a few similarities. And if you don't like it, let me know I may be interested...

D

ps I really like the 1990 menghai district puer, I th> Danica wrote:

Bill,

Thanks for sharing. Those are classic looking teapots, and from the pictures they are the types that I would get myself. Glad to hear it turns out well! I'll be looking into their selections. Is Anling the name of the proprietor?

Danica,

200ml pot for a Wuyi...that's a bit too big for me as well. Not because 200ml of tea is too much for me to drink, but because I put in about 1/2 to 3/4 full of Wuyi leaves into the teapot. That means I have to use a lot of leaves with a 200ml pot.

Danica wrote:

Hi Phyll, Yes Anling is his name. Re the Wuyi teas I would think 200ml is too big as well but I don't drink it as strong in such a big pot. It's not big and round it's kind of pear shaped and I fill the round part

1/4-1/3 full and let it brew for at least a minute each time, then longer. The pot gives the tea round oolong flavors with a hint of roasting. It's the Seven Cups Imperial Rou Gui that I am using, which has very large leaves and a lot of flavor, so perhaps I don't need as much. But I also have a 4 oz zini pot that I sometimes use, which I fill 1/2 full, and it gives a much more roasted and concentrated flavor. Different experience. Danica

------------------------------------ All the "vintage" Yixings from 5000friend are modern fakes. I have been an active Yixing collector for 20 years.

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Are they fakes (made of earthenware) or just modern Yixing pots?

I am pretty sure the the vast majority of "vintage" Yixing pots sold are in fact modern. That's fine as long as you don't expect you're getting something old and rare and are buying it as a thing to drink tea from.

However, if it's a fake that isn't made from zishou (and there are a lot of those out there), it won't be the same for drinking tea from.

--scott

Uh, I think you mean *zisha*.

/Lew

My wifes sister-in-law brother who lives in Taiwan sent me some nitrogen packed tea with the label Bao-Chung. Talk about mixing PinYin and Wade-Giles. The biggest craze is aged Bao-Zhong. He sent some from 1968 which was found stored in a shed which a local farmer forgot. This is happening all over Taiwan. My first impression it is very woodsy. The leaves are hard and black. There is a slight fermentation taste. Leaves this old especially in a pile may have composted. If you suck on the leaves there is a hay taste. There is no charcoal or burnt taste which would indicate tampering. The leaves are much bigger than any BaoZhong of late. In the second infusion there is a pronounced vegetal taste which isnt present in newer BaoZhong. The taste is as much psychological as physical. I can remember 1968 when I was in college. You couldnt forget it. If this tea is as old as claimed then some of the taste I believe is preserved and shows the difference in what you taste today.

Jim