View Single Post
  #25 (permalink)   Report Post  
Posted to rec.food.drink.tea
Bill Wolfe Bill Wolfe is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10
Default Old Yixing teapots on Ebay--First Report

Danica wrote:
> Me too--please let me know how you like your teapots!
>
> Danica
>

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
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=250037481133
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
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=250043812111
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