Temple Street Tea Pots (??)

Hi there, Found this snippet from a post back in 1998 from a Mr Lawrence Khoo...

"It is true that you can buy servicable Yixing teapots for between US$3 to US$10 in Temple street in HK. (BTW, the chinese call them zhisha [pronounced CHEE sha] teapots, meaning purple clay teapots). Don't look for the certificates of authenticity, they are fake, meant only for tourists. Almost all zhisha pots are made in Yixing anyway"

Just hoping some of your may be able to clarify..

Can I assume that these pots, while serviceable, are mass produced or poorly constructed? Would they actually be made of zhisha ? Assume the OP means the certificates are fake, cos to me, if a pot makes tea it's not really a fake - if you see what I mean ;-)

Why do I ask ? - pure curiosity - Temple Street markets are, I find, a good way to lose a few hours after a hard day schlepping through Hong Kong. It always amazes me what you can find for sale there.

Cheers Mal Oz

Reply to
Draconus
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There is zhisha the clay, Yixing the location, ergometrics like pouring, production from a factory mold vs potter's wheel, and price. Previous posts in this group discuss these particulars. You can get a serviceable Yixing zhisha factory mold cheap. You can get a non serviceable Yixing zhisha potter creation which is a work of art. Form and Function ae in the eyes of the beholder. I'm still kicking myself in the rear from not buying a thin little purple teapot, purple cups, and purple tray years ago because I thought the price was too much at $50. I haven't seen a matching set since.

Jim

PS The new 1.7L Kamjove boils a liter of water before I can figure which tea to put > Hi there,

Reply to
Space Cowboy

Good advice. Take a look, if you like it buy it, if you don't, then don't.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the hunt, regardless of the outcome.

Cheers

Reply to
Draconus

I wished I could walk into my Chinatown and choose what I like from 100 pots with certificates. Have fun!

Jim

Drac> Good advice. Take a look, if you like it buy it, if you don't, then don't. >

Reply to
Space Cowboy

You can do that here, no problem. Of course, here most of the pots are cheap earthenware with a glaze that makes them look vaguely like zisha, and the certificates aren't worth the paper they are printed on...

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

My Chinatown doesn't even have a good choice of fakes. It is hard to find earthenware pots that are 100ml or less, light, resonate, with detail that isn't made of zhisha. Glaze is a give away. I don't buy any Yixing unless it has a fake certificate.

Jim

Scott Dorsey wrote:

Reply to
Space Cowboy

You can find such "zisha" pots at any market for that cheap. I have picked up quite a few that go for 35RMB (about 4 bucks) to let my less knowledgeable tea friends to play with when they come over and want to brew tea. It's debatable if they are really made from zisha, but they still do the trick. You put a few bucks more into your "investment" and you can get some really nice replica old pots for less than 10 bucks. This in itself is also a problem...some of the fakers are so good at making these cheap pots look expensive and real, that even some masters have a difficult time discerning which are fake and which are real. Seb just wrote something about this in another thread; check it out.

Reply to
Mydnight

A tiny point, but possibly worth correcting given that several people are using it:

It's "zisha" (not zhisha) and is pronounced approximately "zer-shah" (not "chee sha").

Even "zhisha" should be pronounced approximately "djer-shah", assuming this this Mandarin - not sure where the author back in '98 got that. :)

Toodlepip,

Hobbes

Reply to
HobbesOxon

The so-called correct pronunication differs from place to place. In the Southern parts, down here where I am, the people leave out the /r/ sound so the /i/ sounds normal. In Beijing and the more Northern parts, they add /r/ to the endings of many words that end in /i/, /n/, and several other finals. The claim that Beijing Mandarian is the most standard, but I don't see it as such because that version of Mandarian is only spoken in Beijing (this is my opinion).

The author back in '98 more than likely was told incorrectly by someone as to what the correct pinyin for zisha was. Southerners especially have difficulity discerning between the hissing sibilant sounds in Mandarian because usually their first language is Cantonese or some variant and not Mandarian. For instance zi sometimes becomes zhi; ji can become qi; and the xie becomes xi or zi. One thing that really bugs me is "si" (means 4, rising tone) and shi (means 10, rising tone). Sometimes you can't understand if they are saying 4 yuan or 10 yuan and you have to use the hand symbols for the numbers to catch their meaning.

Not everyone is good at speaking Mandarian.

Reply to
Mydnight

Where is 'here' ??\

Cheers

Reply to
Draconus

OK now that's a worry, no chance for a newbie like me then ! Telling a good from a bad buy then is going to be really tricky. What I have learnt from lurking here reading and talking to local tea shop owner will hopefully be of some use; that is:

  1. check the lid fits properly
  2. the air-hole is a good size
  3. shape is uniform with no obvious mold marks - if I am looking for hand thrown
  4. has sufficient but not over sized strainer holes
  5. no pits in the clay
  6. wall thickness appears to uniform
  7. pours well - apparently I'm told that an honest retailer won't mind me pouring some water in the pot to try it

Now, 8, I also heard from my mate in the local tea shop is that real zisha pots have a characteristic ring to them when you lightly tap the lid on the body of the pot. Almost a crystalline type of ring due to the nature of the clay and high firing temps applied to the pot, apparently. Earthenware and other clays don't apparently do this. Is this a myth or not?. I must admit I have tried this at home with my three pots (which I believe are the real deal) and there is a slightly metallic or crystalline ring. I am not a chemist so I have no idea.

Cheers Mal

Reply to
Draconus

I'm in Williamsburg, VA, the former capitol of the United States (well, before it was quite so united), but a short drive up the road to the Washington DC area will get me huge amounts of badly faked Chinese pots. The DC Chinatown is mostly dead now due to the construction of the MCI Center raising real estate prices through the roof, but there is a very large Chinese community in the Maryland suburbs and a lot of places selling bad quality fake pots up in Rockville.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

Thanks for the insight.

Cheers

Reply to
Draconus

I call the phenomena resonance. You also notice it when you spin the lid in the lip. Earthenware sounds like thumping and grinding or no sound at all. Good zhisha reminds me of porcelain from the feel. It is dull in sheen compared to earthenware. Every Yixing I have has some craftmanship in the handle or spout. I think the bodies are molds. Earthenware is heavy, zhisha is light for comparable sizes. My Chinatown which caters to Vietnamese doesn't even bother to identify Yixing pots as such. It isn't a tourist trap. You find that out through discussion or happenchance. Your first seven items are for teapots in general. Remember it isn't a good fake unless it is real.

Jim

Drac>

Reply to
Space Cowboy

Yes, resonance ! that's the word I was looking for. And I quite agree, twisting the lid in the lip does create a very characteristic tone - reminiscent of the sound of the lid being unscrewed from the Martian vessel on Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds ;-) I don't get this with the standard earthenware or terracotta pots I have - these tend to produce a dull grating or scratching with no resonance at all. I was reading through TWOT the other day and the book refers to a very high iron content in the clay - maybe it's this that accounts for the resonant quality of zhisha.

I can't wait now to try this out on any pots that may be lurking around in Temple street - problem is that SWMBO suggests that I won't be spending the whole two weeks rumaging around for that 'perfect' buy - but I am certainly looking forward to the time she will allow me !

Cheers Mal

Reply to
Draconus

Sorry, I made a typo when i was cutting and pasting.

"si" (means 4, falling tone)

Mydnight wrote:

Reply to
Mydnight

Heh, Sichuan dialect is classic for this. There's almost no distinction between s- and sh- there, as I'm sure you know, and I love watching the locals getting their prices wrong with one another.

Toodles,

H

P.s. I came across a lovely tongue-twister the other day, involving fours, fourteens, and tens. Have you heard it? :)

Reply to
HobbesOxon

No need for chemical explanations. This kind of clay is very fine-grained, and lids fit fairly closely. So instead of a raspy scratch, it's a fine glide. Just rub coarse and XF sandpaper against a brick for a demo. The other main acoustic effect is due to both thin cross-section and high fire resulting in near-vitrification, which together raise both the resonant frequency and the "Q" factor (related to persistence of resonance). Can get the same effect not only with any kind of ceramic, but even with wood and metals.

-DM

Reply to
DogMa

In the markets there, I remember seeing most people only use the hand signals for the numbers and not even speak. Depending on which area of Sichuan you are in, though the differences in the dialects are only in pronunciation, some variations have a clear 10 - 4 difference. Sichuanhua is a funny.

There are many different variations, but I think the easiest one goes something like, 14 is 14 and 40 is 40. (十四是十四,四十是四十). There's another one about 40 dead lions, but for the life of me, I can never get it.

Reply to
Mydnight

I always liked that one! It was written by Zhao Yuanren, apparently to point out that it was a ridiculous idea to represent Chinese in the pinyin system. The poem, along with more details, is available here:

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Joss

Reply to
Joss Wright

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